
TWINKLY EYES 

^AND THE ^ 

LONE LAKE rOLK 


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“Bluff held back, whining” 




TWINKLY EYES 

AND 

THE LONE LAKE FOLK 

A True-to-Nature Story 


BY 


ALLEN CHAFFEE 

Author of “The Adventures of Twinkly Eyes, the 
Little Black Bear,” “Trail and Tree Top,” 
“The Adventures of Fleetfoot and her 
Fawns,” “Lost River,” etc. 


WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY 

PETER J. DA RU ^ 


1921 

MILTON BRADLEY COMPANY 

SPRINGFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS 



Copyright, 1921 j 

By MILTON BRADLEY COMPANY ^ 
Springfield, Massachusetts 

All Rights Reserved 



JUL-5'2.1'^ 

©CU614989 


To My Father, 
memory of my childhood's 
menagerie 






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INTRODUCTION 


Here are some more true-to-nature stories 
for cMldren and those of their elders who 
still enjoy woods life and lore. 

The scene is laid in the North Woods, 
where Baldy the Eagle and the Fish Hawk 
and Kingfisher families can still best the 
mere human angler at landing a speckled 
trout, and where that little black rascal, 
Twinkly Eyes, the bear, and Mother Black 
Bear and her two new babies, and Unk 
Wunk the Porcupine, and Old Man Lynx, 
and Frisky Fox, have new adventures, and 
make the acquaintance of Madame Mink, 
and the Otter and Raccoon families, and 
cross old Mother Badger, and Mephitis the 
Skunk. 

Each chapter makes a separate story, for 
the most part (though all are connected), — 
and that it may be suitable for bedtime read- 
ing, no animal hero is ever killed. But 


INTRODUCTION 


though most of the adventures are amusing 
(as well as instructive), — behind Twinkly’s 
pranks we could find some pretty solid char- 
^ acter if we wanted to look for it. 

Then there is the trapper, — ^but we 
mustn’t tell too much before-hand, must we, 
kiddies? 

Your friend, 

Allen Chaffee. 


CONTEXTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I The Little Black Bear 9 

II A Strange Adventure 16 

III A Queer Snow-ball ...... 25 

IV Which Was Foxier? . , 30 

V The Best of the Bargain .... 37 

VI Two Strange Creatures 44 

VII The Naughty Cousin 51 

VIII The Peace Maker 58 

IX “Cross as a Bear'’ 66 

X A Little Misunderstanding . . . .73 

XI The Juggler 80 

XII The Freshet .87 

XIII The End op the Truce 94 

XIV The Sugar Camp 101 

XV Bluff and Boxer 107 

XVI A Good Eesolution 116 







TWINKLY EYES AND THE 
LONE LAKE FOLK 

CHAPTER I 

THE LITTLE BLACK BEAK 



LL the long, cold winter, Twinkly 


XJL Eyes, the little black bear, had slept, 
as snug as could be, in his den under the 
tree-root. 

The snows had whirled and the winds had 
whistled across the mountain-side, but the 
yearling cub had kept as warm as toast. 
For the snow-drift kept the wind out, and 
with his thick fur coat, and the blanket of 
fat that he wore just inside his skin, he had 
only to roll himself into a ball, with his toes 
inside, and he hadn’t a trouble on earth. 
His dreams were all of summer in the blue- 
berry patch. 

The rascal thought he was hidden and no 
one could find him, away up there on the 


10 Twinkly Eyes and the Lone Lake Folk 

side of Mount Olaf. But there was one 
thing that gave him away completely. The 
warmth of his breathing had melted a chim- 
ney right through the top of his house ; and 
the ‘‘smoke’’ made the snow all yellow. 
Father Eed Fox could tell from that alone 
that a bear was inside. — (Even if his nose 
hadn’t told him so. For every one of the 
wood folk has his own brand of perfume, 
and most of them can tell more with their 
noses than we can with our eyes.) 

The meadow mice used to spy upon the lit- 
tle bear’s hiding place as he slept. The 
snow was tracked like fine lace with their 
funny foot-prints. Had Twinkly Eyes but 
known, he would surely have come out and 
chased them. For he was a famous mouser. 

But when the April sun had melted the 
snow on his roof, and he woke up with a 
yawn, and began stretching his legs, they 
heard him, and scampered away to their tun- 
nels. 

When he first thrust his head through the 
snow-bank that blocked his door-way, he 
could only wink and blink at the sunshine. 


The Little Black Bear 11 

which glittered on the snow crust. By and 
by he could see down into the valley where 
the snow had melted. There was Lone 
Lake, as blue as could be, though the wil- 
lows were still brown and leafless around its 
rim. But his sharp little ears caught the 
nasal quacking of ducks tipping about in the 
shallow margin for clams. 

“Hurray! Spring has come!’’ he 
whoofed joyously. And he started shuffling 
so fast down the slope that all four feet 
slipped out from beneath him. — ^Whish! — 
away he slid, flat on his little round tummy! 

“Eight side up, with care!” he told him- 
self, when he came to a stop at the marsh 
that bordered Lone Lake. He shook him- 
self, then gave a grunt of pleasure. For the 
ground was dotted green and brown with 
skunk cabbages, the very best kind of spring 
tonic known to the Black Bear family. 

Some of them were still wrapped in their 
spiky green capes, though a few were al- 
ready in blossom, inside their brown striped 
tents. The little bear ate the flower out of 
one which he pulled free with two claws, and 


12 Twinkly Eyes and the Eone hake Folk 

never even made a face at the bitter flavor. 
(There was no one to make a face at.) 
Then he nibbled the tips of a willow. But 
he wasn’t really hungry yet. His stomach 
had been so empty all winter that it had 
shrunk to almost nothing, and it would be 
two weeks before he would want a square 
meal. 

That coasting had been fun, though. He 
decided to try it again. But first, what was 
that message on the smell-telephcne stump 
at the crossing of the trails ? 

‘‘Brother Woof!” said his nose. Sure 
enough, there were Woof’s flat little foot- 
prints zig-zagging around a big rock. 

“Whoof! Whoof!” roared someone, 
springing out at him from behind a tree- 
trimk. The ducks flew up in afright as the 
two cubs rolled and tumbled, clinching, bit- 
ing and cuffing one another in a sham fight. 

They were glad of the meeting, though; 
for woods, lake and mountain-side, all were 
theirs to explore! — ^Little did they dream 
what dangers lay in wait, so bold had they 


The Little Black Bear 13 

become since Mother Black Bear had sent 
them to shift for themselves ! 

First they raced each other up the moun- 
tain-side, following Twinkly’s trail along 
the brook-bed. Then they tried to dig out 
a nest of mice they could hear in the rock- 
slide, where the wind had swept the snow 
away. But on these upper slopes, the 
ground was still frozen hard as ice. 

Then Twinkly Eyes gave his brother a 
shove, and sent him sliding down a snow- 
bank, flat on his back. 

^‘ni get you, for that I threatened Woof, 
galloping back to where his tormentor sat 
laughing at him. But just as he reached 
the spot, Twinkly threw himself flat on his 
chest, shoving off with a swimming motion, 
and coasted out of his reach. 

Woof somer-saulted head over heels as h6 
tried to catch up, but before he could reach 
bottom, Twinkly was back at the top. This 
time the rascal spied a better slide, — a long 
hill slope as smooth as glass, with its frozen 
crust; and off he started, ‘‘belly-bumps/’ 


14 Txmnkly Eyes and the Lone Lake Folk 

before Woof could climb back again. There 
were no trees to stop him, — nothing but a 
long, steep slide for as far as he could see. 
Nothing could be jollier. 

Faster and faster he whizzed down the in- 
cline, in a swirl of snow-dust that almost 
blinded him. 

‘^Splurf!’’ he choked. Someone stop 
me, quick For he suddenly remembered 
that in summer this was the hill that shot 
over the edge of a cliff. If he were to go 
coasting over that cliff, no telling how far 
he might fall, — nor what would happen to 
him when he got through falling ! 

‘‘Help! Help!” he squealed again, 
though he knew he would have to help him- 
self, if anyone did. 

Clutching at the snow-crust, in vain he 
tried for a foot-hold; but his claws found 
nothing to grab hold of. 

Whirling about, he rolled over and over 
till he could slide sitting down, with his 
heels digging into the snow. Then he came 
to a bump, and the next thing he knew, he 
had turned a cart-wheel, and was once more 


The Little Black Bear 15 

jflat on his chest, and going faster than ever. 

His heart thumped with fright as he saw 
the edge of the cliff just ahead. 


CHAPTER II 


A STRANGE ADVENTURE 

H ELP! Help!’^ squealed Twinkly 
Eyes, as he slid faster and faster 
over the snow crust. 

Then it happened! — Straight off the cliff 
into space he flew! — Head over heels went 
the little black bear, his fat hind legs doubled 
about his neck. Then — ^he landed on the 
top of the giant drift that had banked up 
against the cliff. 

But though the snow-drift broke the speed 
of his fall, it didn’t stop his downward prog- 
ress. The snow gave way beneath him and 
he kept right on. Down, down, down he 
went, through a smother of white. Then, 
suddenly, he came to a halt. 

But where was he ? At the bottom of the 
white chimney his round little body had 
made in the snow-bank ! It was like being 
at the bottom of a great, hollow tree. Only 
16 


A Strange Adventure 17 

if it really had been a tree, he could have 
climbed right out. But the snow walls gave 
way beneath his claws, and he could gain no 
foot-hold. 

For one awful moment he wondered if he 
would have to stay there, a prisoner, till he 
starved. 

‘‘Oh, well,’’ he sniffed at last, “if you 
can’t do a thing one way, you can another. 
I’ll just dig a tunnel” 

Soon he was as busy as a beaver (who 
works hard when he has to, though that isn’t 
very often, if the truth were known.) It 
was easy going, — ^through the soft snow. A 
faint light sifted through the whiteness, and 
it wasn’t half bad fun. Then he began to 
get hungry. 

Pausing to rest for a moment, — for it was 
work that warmed one up, — his ears rose to 
the sound of a little squeak. 

“A mouse!” said Twinkly Eyes, with de- 
light. ‘ ‘ Isn ’t that just my luck ? ’ ’ 

The sound had come from almost beneath 
him, yet he could see nothing. The moss 
that covered the ground was frozen hard. 


18 Twinhly Eyes and the Lone Lake Folk 

He could just get Ms claws into a crack. 
Now he could hear excited squeaking all 
about him, and the scuffling of tiny feet. 

In another mqment he had loosed a layer 
of the moss. There, beneath his very eyes, 
lay a regular mouse village, with tiny under- 
ground streets and run-ways criss-crossing 
one another. He had found a colony of field 
mice. His nose told him that much, even 
before he caught a glimpse of one of the 
queer, short tailed fellows. 

Crouched like a puppy, he waited beside 
the run-way he had uncovered. It was a 
game of patience. Sure enough, after a 
long, long time, a blunt brown nose peeked 
out at him. In a twinkling the little bear 
had ripped off another section of the tunnel 
roof, and clapped his paw on a mouse. 
That solved the problem of what to have for 
supper. 

It was dark now, and the warmth of his 
breath had made his prison so snug and 
comfy that Twinkly Eyes decided to curl up, 
with his nose cuddled into his arms, and 
sleep till to-morrow. 


A Strange Adventure 19 

It didn’t seem two minutes till morning 
came again, and to his surprise he had tun- 
neled out in no time. The drift hadn’t been 
nearly so long as he had fancied. 

That is the way with a lot of our troubles, 
he told himself. They aren’t half so bad 
as we think they are going to be. 

By noon the sun had come out so warm 
and bright that the snow began to melt in 
little rivulets that trickled musically under 
the drifts, as they found their way down 
the valleys into Lone Lake. , 

^‘Wonder where all the folks are?” 
Twinkly asked himself. For Woof was no- 
where to be found, and he was lonesome. 

Walking gingerly on feet that were tender 
after his winter sleep, he set about studying 
the trails that led through the snow and 
mud to Lone Lake. Already these were 
worn by the feet of hundreds of wood folk, 
— Old Man Bed Fox, out after ducks, and 
Slim the Weasel, chasing the brown bunnies 
over the drifts, and Bobby Lynx the wild 
cat, circling the lake to watch for the trout 
that would show, the minute the ice should 


20 Twinkly Eyes and the Lone Lake Folk 

melt. The blue sky was musical with the 
calls of geese as they came in great V-shaped 
clouds from the South. 

Then with a woof of joy, Twinkly Eyes 
espied the shambling trail of Mother Black 
Bear. It led straight to a den beneath a 
boulder, and the half grown cub would have 
rushed straight in to greet her, but that she 
suddenly thrust her great black head 
through her doorway, growling a cross 
‘‘Keep out!’’ 

“But I want to come in,” whined Twinkly 
Eyes. 

“You can’t, — ^you’ll wake the babies.” 

“Babies! — Oh! Ple-a-s-e let me see 
them!” 

But for answer Mother Black Bear only 
fell to licking the velvety fur of the two 
new little cubs. And no wonder she 
wouldn’t let anyone near them. For such 
tiny, helpless little balls of fur as they were, 
aU cuddled up together to keep their toes 
warm! 

“Huh! I don’t want to see the whining 



“But I want to come in” whined Twinkly Eyes, 



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A Strange Adventure 21 

things/’ grunted Twinkly Eyes. ‘‘I’m go- 
in’ fishin’ anyway.” 

And off he shambled on his flat hind feet 
down the trail. 

Now Twinkly was not the only one of the 
wood folk who had been coasting. No 
sooner had he started to cross the ravine 
than he heard a rumbling from up the 
mountain-side. The next moment he was 
racing madly to get out of the way of the 
most uncanny object he had ever seen. 

But first let us go back to the Valley 
Farm, at the foot of Mount Olaf. 

The self-same night that the little black 
bear had spent under the snow-drift, the 
most peculiar gnawing had awakened the 
Hired Man, as he lay tucked up to his ears in 
the barn-loft. At first he thought it was a 
rat, but the sound was too loud for that. 
Besides, a rat would have ceased — at least 
for a moment — when he hammered his boots 
on the fioor. But this sound went right on, 
monotonously, without a break. 

Then suddenly Jake’s hair began to rise 


22 Twinkly Eyes and the Lone Lake Folk 

on his scalp. What if it was a panther, or a 
great old bear roused from his winter’s sleep 
and savage with hunger ? 

Thrusting his cold feet noiselessly into his 
lumberman’s boots, he tiptoed to the little 
dormer window and peered down into the 
moonlit barn-yard. 

There was nothing there. The Hired 
Man’s scalp grew pricklier. It must have 
been a ghost. 

That the place was haunted J ake had long 
suspected; in fact, ever since the night he 
had seen the odd monkey-face of Whitey 
the Barn Owl flitting through the shadows 
uttering his weird cry. 

Then, listening with strained ears, fairly 
holding his breath, lest he break the silence, 
he suddenly heard a dry click-click. It 
sounded like little sticks being struck to- 
gether. A moment more and he laughed 
aloud in his relief. — From a little round 
black shadow at the corner of the building 
had come the grunting song of a porcupine. 

‘‘Unk-wunk, unk-wunk,” he sang, his dry 


A Strange Adventure 23 

quills rattling together at every movement. 
And still the gnawing went right on. 

‘‘The impudent young rascal,” muttered 
J ake. ‘ ‘ I suppose he ’s after salt. W ell, I ’d 
rather give him a handful outright than 
have him gnawing into my ears all night 
long.” He might have taken another 
method of quieting the weird serenade, but 
that the Boy from the Valley Farm had for- 
bidden his hurting any of the wild folk. 

So, lighting a tallow candle, Jake wrapped 
a quilt about his shivering liUibs and 
tramped down the ladder to the storeroom. 
Arrived at the salt-barrel, he noted that it 
stood just inside the corner Unk Wunk was 
gnawing on. The prickly one had probably 
smelled it and was trying to get at it. 

“There, you varmint!” the man ex- 
claimed as he threw a handful of broken 
rock salt out on the snow. 

But no sooner had he once more snuggled 
down into the blankets than the gnawing 
began again. And this time he began to 
wonder if he had really put the axe away 


24 Twinkly Eyes and the Lone Lake Folk 

after that last armful of wood, or could it 
be his best axe-handle the pesky thing was 
ruining 

Grabbing up one of his heavy boots, he 
flung it through the window. 

Of what happend next, Jake will tell to 
his dying day. 

The boot struck Unk Wunk squarely on 
his prickly back. ‘‘Slap, slap,” he went 
irately with that barbed tail of his, ramming 
the felt leg of the boot so full of quills that 
it was going to give someone a lot of fun 
before ever he could get it on in the morn- 
ing. Then, sniffing curiously, he set to 
work gnawing the boot toe. 

“Scat! I’ll get you for that!” yelled the 
Hired Man, hopping about wrathfully in the 
remaining foot-covering. But Unk Wunk 
never paused in his monotonous chorus. 
“Unk- wunk, unk- wunk,” he sang placidly, 
as he finished the boot. 


CHAPTER III 


A QUEER SNOW-BALL 

T he next day, though, as the singer sat 
blissfully gnawing the hark of a yellow 
birch tree, on the slope of Mount Olaf, the 
Hired Man, out with a rabbit-snare, 
straightway looked about him for a club, 
feeling that what the Boy didn’t know 
wouldn’t hurt hfm. 

Snow had followed snow that winter, and 
it still lay deep in the hollows of the stream 
beds. Just how deep it was right there, 
J ake in his snow-shoes had no means of tell- 
ing. At any rate, the day had turned mild 
and sunny, and he noticed that down at the 
foot of the slope little tricklets of water 
flowed from beneath the bank. That meant 
that the snow was melting underneath. 

As the man turned with club upraised, 
ready to fell the little porcupine with one 

25 


26 Twinkly Eyes and the Lone Lake Folk 

swinging blow, be suddenly heard a slow, 
rumbling sound beneath his feet. At the 
same instant the snow began to move. With 
one yell of dismay, the man leaped clear of 
the drift, bracing himself in the branches 
of a stunted spruce tree. 

Unk Wunk was not so fortunate. 

As the mass of snow on which he sat be- 
gan to slide down the mountainside he was 
caught just too far from either boundary 
to get out of the way, even had the stub- 
born fellow had a mind to. 

So, accustomed as he was to bracing him- 
self inside his barbed coat at whatever 
slings and arrows of outrageous fortune 
came his way, he simply stood his ground, 
like a huge pin-cushion with the points all 
out, till it was too late for him to attempt a 
getaway. 

Yes, sir, Unk Wunk the porcupine was 
certainly caught that time. One moment he 
had lain placidly gnawing the root of the 
birch tree, and the next, the whole thawing 
snow-bank was sliding down the gulch. 


27 


A Queer Snow-Ball 

Very, very seldom had Unk Wunk found 
it necessary to run away. What with his 
quills, which float him like a cork in the 
water, and his ability to fatten on bark, he 
had ever been secure from both flood and 
famine, to say nothing of eneimies in fur. 

In fact, he had never had to be very alert. 
His wits were quite untrained, save alone in 
his little way of waiting till the attacking 
one invited a slap of his armored tail. 

Thus he did not quite realize the peril of 
his present situation. He made no effort to 
escape. 

Soon he found himself being bumped and 
hurled along at a pace faster than he could 
have run. From underneath the sliding 
mass, which had banked too heavily, came a 
rumbling noise like low thunder, though the 
sun was shining waifmly all the time. It 
was most uncanny. 

Now the snow was swirling around him 
like white spray, Ailing his eyes and making 
it hard for him to breathe. 

Suddenly he had an idea. Doubling him- 


28 Twinhly Eyes and the Lone Lake Folk 

self into a prickly ball, with his unpro- 
tected face and sto|mach safely tucked in- 
side, he just simply allowed himself to roll. 
And what with the slope of the mountain 
and the roundness of the ball he made, with 
his quills all laid smooth against his sides, 
he went even faster than the snowslide, so 
that he stayed on top, instead of falling into 
the shaking mass and being crushed and 
buried beneath it. 

Yes, sir, that young porcupine actually 
came out on top. 

In fact, if you have ever rolled a snow- 
ball till it got bigger and bigger and bigger 
the farther you rolled it, you saw just how 
he gathered snow on his quills till he looked 
like a great white ball that grew fatter the 
farther it rolled. 

He reached the bottom of the slope just 
ahead of the snowslide, but still he kept on 
rolling. And his rind was so thick that he 
hadn’t an idea where he was. (Twinkly 
stopped to stare at the queer snow-ball.) 

On and on he rolled, faster and faster and 
faster, till he had rolled clear down to Lone 


A Queer Snow-Ball 


29 


Lake. There the huge ball skated across the 
ice so fast that when it came up against a 
tree at the other end, it hit with a bang, fly- 
ing into a hundred pieces. 

Unk Wunk slowly uncurled himself and 
gazed about him. Then, seeing that all was 
well, after all, he peacefully settled himself 
at the foot of the tree for a taste of beech 
bark. 

The Hired Man laughed so hard that he 
got all over being cross with him. When 
at last he had reached a point where he 
could see the end of the race: ‘^Well, I de- 
clare!’’ he gasped, ‘Hhe rascal deserves to 
go free, after all he’s been through. He’s 
got nerve, and no mistake.” 

Frisky Fox, in the den just back of the 
pond, however, thought quite differently 
about it. 




CHAPTER IV 


WHICH WAS FOXIER? 

F ather,” begged young Frisky, as 
he snuggled closer to Old Man Red 
Fox, won’t you tell me just once more how 
it was you caught that porcupine when you 
were my age?” 

‘‘Well, son,” said the old fox, smiling at 
his memories, “there was the porcupine 
sprawled out on the top of a snow-bank, 
gnawing the bark of a spruce tree. And he 
was so confident of his safety that he 
wouldn’t even look around when he heard 
me bark. 

“Quills all over till you couldn’t touch 
him anywhere, (except his under side), 
without getting badly hurt. And he knew 
it.” 

“But my, how you feasted on porcupine 
that night,” said Frisky, licking his chops at 

30 


Which Was Foxier? 


31 


the thought, yellow eyes gleaming in the 
darkness of the gave. 

‘^How do you suppose I did it?” de- 
manded Old Man Red Fox. 

^^Why, I suppose one would try to grab 
him where there weren’t any quills.” 

^‘But how?” insisted Father Red Fox. 
He was anxious to cultivate keenness of wit 
in this promising youngster of his. 

‘‘It would be pretty hard to turn him 
over, without getting your paw full of 
quills, wouldn’t it, father?” 

“It certainly would, for a fox, though a 
bear or a lynx might manage it with their 
great iron claws.” 

“And a fox never wants to get a sore 
foot,” reasoned Frisky, “when his life and 
his living depend on his fleetness.” 

“Right again,” said Red Fox proudly. 

“Well, then,” decided the pup, “I’ll tell 
you what I’d do. I’d just simply burrow 
under the snow till I got right under the 
fellow, then I’d make a quick grab upward 
through the snow and set my teeth in his 
heart. And when he was quite, quite still, 


32 Twinldy Eyes and the Lone Lake Folk 

I’d flip him over on his back and eat the 
meat right out of the shell, without once 
getting too near the quills.” 

‘‘Good!” said Father Eed Fox; “only 
don’t forget the last part, for if one of those 
barbs gets into your mouth, it will go clear 
through to your brain, if it doesn’t starve 
you by slow torture.” 

“But that’s the way to do it, isn’t it?” 
Frisky demanded proudly. 

His father’s eyes twinkled delightedly. 
“Just what I did, exactly. Go to it, son!” 

Frisky peered out at the now starlit ex- 
panse of the forest floor, across which not 
even a mouse’s trail could be seen. It had 
been a couple of days now since he had had 
a real square jneal, and it was getting to the 
point where all he could think of was the 
empty feeling in his little tummy. 

“It’s either that or the chicken-house at 
the Valley Farm,” he decided. And while 
Frisky had as much sheer courage as any- 
one, he could smell the iron of the Hired 
Man’s gun at the thought, and he had 
watched his brother make the attempt one 


Which Was Foocier? 33 

moonlight night. — His brother had not come 
back. 

Guess I’ll try the porcupine,” he finally 
decided. 

Now it was one thing for a red fox pup 
to think out a way of catching the fat por- 
cupine, and quite another to do it. For of 
all the four-footed folk in the forest, Unk 
Wunk is the most surprising. 

When Frisky fared forth that night to 
find him a dinner, he was famished enough 
to tackle anything, however desperate it 
might seem. 

At the first sound of the little snow-slide 
that had brought Unk Wunk down the 
mountainside so quickly, he had stared and 
stared, as the huge white ball had skidded 
across the pond. When it rolled against the 
tree and smashed into a dozen pieces, and 
Unk Wunk had lazily uncurled himself, and 
set to gnawing the bark, young Frisky Fox 
had taken it all in with those sharp eyes of 
his, and Jmulled it over with his sharper wits. 

Evidently, he had reasoned, Unk Wunk 
had a placid disposition and did not intend 


34 Twinkly Eyes and the Lone Lake Folk 

to let himself be disturbed by anything that 
went on around, above or underneath him. 
Why then, so much the better for his plan. 

The fox pup walked softly, and for at 
least half an hour there was no sound in all 
the woods around save the gnawing of TJnk 
Wunk’s long front teeth, as he ate his sup- 
per, and his contented little grunting song. 
But Mother Grouse Hen and her brood, hid- 
ing snug and warm beneath a snow-bank, 
were more than a little startled by the sound 
of a moving form making its way beneath 
the surface of the snow. 

Despite the North Woods’ April chill, the 
little porcupine lay sprawled at ease over 
the snow that banked against the foot of the 
tree. He felt secure in the knowledge that, 
should an enemy approach from behind, 
slap-slap would go that barbed tail of his, 
leaving the intruder stuck full of quills. 

But Frisky knew that the porcupine’s un- 
der side had no quills to protect it. Digging 
down clear underneath the surface of the 
snow, he began creeping, creeping, creeping 
ever so stealthily toward the point where a 


Which Was Footer? 


35 


fat black shadow told him Unk Wiink lay. 

And Unk Wunk’s song, his own name over 
and over again, came to the velvet ears of 
the red fox pup, filling him with irritation 
at the other’s contentment, — to be himself 
so hollowed-sided, and the other one rolling 
in fat! 

Frisky burrowed silently. With his agile 
black paws he Imade his way through the 
snow, till at last he was directly beneath the 
little porcupine. Then darting straight at 
the place where Unk Wunk’s chest should 
be, he brought his jaws together with a snap. 

His teeth closed on a mouthful of air — 
nothing more. For the little porcupine had 
the instant before decided to climb the tree. 

‘‘Haw! Haw! Haw!” laughed Jimmy 
Crow from the sentinel pine above. 

Frisky clicked his teeth at him. “I’ll get 
you some day!” he barked wrathfully. 

Twinkly Eyes suddenly burst from his 
hiding-place, for he could keep still no 
longer. 

“Huh! You want to watch me turn him 
over,” he boasted, remembering the way his 


36 Twinkly Eyes and the Lone Lake Folk 

mother used to flip the prickly fellow to his 
back with just the edge of her claws. But 
at that very instant he stepped on a porcu- 
pine quill, and by the time he had got that 
out of his foot he was ready to call it a day. 


CHAPTER V 


THE BEST OF THE BAKGAIH 

T WINKLY eyes gave a yap of pleas- 
ure as he spied the pigeon-toed foot- 
prints of Snapper the big snapping turtle, 
whose iron beak always made swimming a 
bit of an adventure for one. 

Snapper didn’t have much use for the lit- 
tle bear. — ^Who would, when every chance 
he got, he turned her over on her back, with 
all fours waving helplessly? To-day she 
no sooner spied the mischievous rascal than 
she waddled off into the lake and hid just 
under a root that over-hung the bank. 

Now as it happened, that was the very 
root that Twinkly had selected to fish from. 
Stretching himself out blissfully, with one 
paw dangling ready to slap his claws into the 
first nice tender fingerling trout that passed, 
he began watching the fiash of silvery forms 
farther out. 


37 


38 Twinkly Eyes and the Lone Lake Folk 

lie was just thinking, ‘‘What a 
feast I shall have!’’ when something hard 
and sharp suddenly nabbed his paw. 

“Let go!” squealed Twinkly in pained 
surprise, tugging to get loose. 

‘ ‘ I shan ’t ! ” hissed a familiar voice. “ I ’ll 
teach you to meddle with me.'” — It was 
Snapper herself! 

“Gr-r-r!” growled the little bear. “I’ll 
eat you alive, if you don’t let go !” 

But Snapper only clung to the furry 
black paw, which her jaws hurt cruelly. 
“I’m going to bite it clear off, and then you 
can never turn me over on my back again,” 
she assured him. 

Twinkly, staring, frightened, at her ugly 
snake-like head, could quite believe her. 

Snapper had jaws like steel, and she 
would as soon eat a bear paw as she would a 
fish. Her humpy, thick-sheUed back pro- 
tected her everywhere (except for the legs 
that she had to keep paddling to ktep her 
afloat). 

“Of course it wasn’t very kind of Ine to 
tease her,” poor Twinkly told himself. 


39 


The Best of the Bargain 

‘‘But after all, I only meant it for a joke. 
I didn’t really hurt her. But if something; 
doesn’t happen quick, I’ll have to go 
through life on three legs!” 

But the little bear must have been born 
lucky. For at that very moment a big 
spiny Pike, — a fish with as evil an eye as 
Snapper’s herself, — came swimming by; 
and spying the big turtle with her back 
turned and her feet waving free of her shell, 
he decided to see what a leg would taste 
like. 

Bushing like a green streak for his prey, 
he took her left hind foot at one big gulp and 
began trying to swallow it. 

Snapper, attacked thus from the rear, was 
taken by surprise, and turned her head to 
see. At the moment it seemed more worth 
while to snap her jaws at the Pike than to 
punish Twinkly Eyes. Mother Black 
Bear’s young hopeful needed no second hint 
to run away from such a dangerous neigh- 
borhood. He didn’t even wait to see who 
won. Snapper or the Pike. His paw hurt 
dreadfully, and all he wanted in this world 


40 Twinhly Eyes arid the Lone Lake Folk 

was to hide himself in the bushes and lick 
it till he made it well again. 

There were other fishermen besides him- 
self that day. Twinkly, nursing his paw in 
the bushes, fell to watching two of them. A 
pair of great, broad winged birds were cir- 
cling like aeroplanes above the lake. They 
wore brown plumage, with white under- 
vests, so that, looking up at them frcto be- 
neath, he could hardly see them against the 
light of the sky. — Neither could the fish, 
which was of course the reason why Father 
and Mother Osprey dressed that way. 

Closing her wings tight to her sides, 
Mother Osprey suddenly dove through the 
air, and splashed head foremost through the 
brown lake water after a trout. In a mo- 
ment she rose again, a fish in her great 
curved claws, her yellow eyes gleaming 
hungrily; and with wings fiapping the water 
off in a spray, flew up into a tree to enjoy 
her dinner. 

Holding the fish firmly with one foot, she 
started tearing off great, greedy bites with 


41 


The Best of the Bargain 

her strong curved beak, searching the sky as 
she did so, as if afraid. 

(What could such a great bird possibly 
be afraid of, wondered the little black 
bear?) 

Then from away off on the peak of Mount 
Olaf he heard a harsh ‘‘cac-cac-cac!” fol- 
lowed by a burst of wild, almost human 
laughter. It was Baldy, the white-headed 
eagle. Swift as the wind came Baldy, on 
his great, broad wings. The air whistled 
to the sound of his flight: and Mother Os- 
prey ate faster and faster. 

Now Twinkly noticed her mate spiraling 
above the lake. At last he, too, took the 
downward plunge, darting through the 
water after a fleeing flsh. He made his 
catch. Eising in a shower of spray, he, too, 
made as if to take up his perch on the old 
pine, where he could devour his meal. But 
Baldy was just overhead now, his harsh cry 
sounding his threats. 

Of course an eagle is so large and strong, 
and he can fight so terribly with his great 


42 Twinkly Eyes and the Lone Lake Folk 

hooked beak and his curved steel talons, that 
he isn’t afraid of anything. But he is 
mighty poor at catching fish. And there is 
nothing he loves better than a fat speckled 
trout. 

He gets his fill, though, — as Twinkly Eyes 
discovered. 

The instant Father Osprey saw Baldy 
coming, he left his perch and began racing 
through the air with his fish tight clutched 
in his talons. Baldy began racing, too, and 
Mother Osprey followed, screaming threats 
at Baldy. The air whizzed with the beat of 
angry wings, and the three birds together 
filled Twinkly ’s ears -with their raucous 
screaming. 

It was Mother Osprey who did most of the 
sparring, because her mate was weighted 
down with his catch. Flapping her broad 
wings sharply in the eagle’s face, she tried 
hard to distract his attention from the fish. 
But it was no use. Baldy knew he could 
always win in a fight, and the Ospreys knew 
it too; so when he insisted. Father Osprey 
simply did not dare run the risk of having 


The Best of the Bargain 43 

that dreadful beak take a bite out of him. 

He suddenly let go his trout, and Baldy 
darted after it as it fell, meaning to catch it 
before it reached the water. 

But as luck would have it, the fish struck 
against a high branch of the tall sugar 
maple, and instead of falling the way Baldy 
was counting on, it bounced off side-wise. — 
It fell at Twinkly ’s very feet ! 


CHAPTER VI 


TWO STRANGE CREATURES 

‘‘f^T^ALK about luck!’’ said Twinkly 
JL Eyes, as he set his teeth into the fish 
that the eagle had let drop. 

But at that same mohient he caught sight 
of his brother Woof peering at him through 
the bushes. His first thought was to sit 
down on the fish so that Woof wouldn’t see 
it, and on this thought he acted promptly. 
But it didn’t work. Had Woof been 
farther away, it might have. But Woof 
had a nose as wonderful as Twinkly ’s. He 
could smell fish a very long distance away. 

‘‘Stingy!” he whined hungrily. 

“What do you mean, ‘stingy’?” teased 
Twinkly, with a stare of wide-eyed inno- 
cence. 

For answer, Woof stood up on his fat 
hind legs and gave his brother a smart cuff 

44 


Two Strange Creatures 45 

over the ear. Of course that started a 
wrestling match. It wasn’t till they rolled 
clinched fast in each other’s arms into the 
lake that their wrath was cooled. 

They emerged, shaking themselves like 
puppies, only to find that Bobby Lynx had 
made off with the fish ! 

After that there was nothing left to do 
but to hunt around in the sand to see if 
Snapper the turtle had hidden her eggs yet. 

Several days passed, during which the 
warm yellow sun turned the naked willows 
into a mist of feathery green, and set the 
snowy hillsides to trickling musically. 
Twinkly Eyes spent most of his time search- 
ing for tender grass roots and new young 
green stuff. 

One moon-light night he hid in the willow 
shrubs again to watch the wood folk come 
down to the lake for a drink. First there 
was Fleet Foot the doe and her two new 
little spotted fawns, who waded delicately 
into the shallows till a sudden move on the 
part of the bear cub sent them leaping back 
into the shadows, the doe leading the way 


46 Twinhly Eyes and the Lone Lake Folk 

with her ‘‘Hew!’’ of alarm and her white 
flag raised. 

Next ca|me Frisky, the red fox pup, and 
Unk Wunk the prickly porcupine, — ^wad- 
dling along like a black and white needle 
cushion, — and finally Father Black Bear, so 
cross and empty and sore-footed after his 
winter’s nap that Twinkly Eyes didn’t even 
dare say “Hello, Pop!” 

Then the little black bear saw something 
that made him blink his eyes to make sure 
he saw straight. Directly across from this 
arm of Lone Lake was a long, steep bank 
that ended in deep water. This bank, he 
had noticed, was smooth and muddy every 
morning, even when the rest of the ground 
was dry. Now suddenly two strange crea- 
tures appeared at the top of the bank and 
went coasting ker-splash into the pool be- 
neath. No sooner had they paddled their 
way to the bank and climbed to the top than 
slide, splash, down they went again, head 
foremost, dragging their long, flat tails be- 
hind them. (What could they be, Twinkly 
wondered ?) Again and again they climbed 


Two Strange Creatures 47 

the bank, — only to slide back into the pool. 

That, Twinkly told himself, must be why 
the bank was always smooth and muddy in 
the morning. 

His heart warmed to the newcomers, who 
enjoyed coasting just as he did. But what 
strange-looking folk they were, — these Ot- 
ters. When they raised their whiskered, 
puppy-like faces from the water to give a 
look about, they might have been huge 
snakes, with their little round heads at the 
end of their long necks, their tiny ears laid 
flat. 

From the ease with which they swam, 
Twinkly surmised that they had webbed feet 
like ducks, and they used their broad, flat 
tails, like muskrats, to steer with. He won- 
dered that they climbed the bank so swiftly, 
seeing how short their legs were. Their 
long bodies gleamed like silk in the moon- 
light. 

After awhile the sleek fellows began 
thinking of breakfast, — for they sleep by 
day, and our evening is their morning. 
The moon-lit lake was cut into gleaming V- 


48 Twinhly Eyes and the Lone Lake Folk 

shaped ripples by the muskrats as they 
swam; and at first the Otters contented 
thetmselves with chasing these mal-odorous 
fellows. But they much preferred the deli- 
cate flavor of the trout ; and soon they made 
their way down to the stretch of rough water 
where Beaver Brook rushed into the lake. 

Here gold and silver fish ranged restlessly 
as they searched for caddis worms, their red 
fins glinting in the foamy water. Of course 
the instant they saw the Otters, they made 
for the quiet pools under the over-hanging 
branches. This was always a safe place 
when there were fish-hawks about. But the 
Otters only dove smoothly after them, 
crunching first one, and then another 
through the back-bone and letting the dead 
bodies rise to the surface, there to float in 
the moonlight till the fishermen were ready 
for theim. The warier trout, finding the 
pool a dangerous place, tried to make for 
the exit. But the Otters headed them off 
and they fared no better than the others 
had done. 

Now Twinkly Eyes had noticed, just at 


Two Strange Creatures 49 

sunset, a V-shaped flock of geese that had 
come ‘‘Honk, honk, k’honk,” out of the sky 
to the south, and had slanted down to a tiny 
islet out in the lake. Here, after gabbling 
through a supper of such water plants as 
they could find, they had tucked their heads 
under their wings and gone to sleep. 

Twinkly wondered how they could feel so 
safe, with Old Man Red Fox and Bobby 
Lynx in the woods hard by. Then he 
learned the answer. First he saw Red Fox 
come down to the lake shore and peer long- 
ingly at the flock. But this fellow valued 
his plumy tail far too much to get it wet 
merely to gratify his palate, so he only 
yapped his disappointment and trotted 
away again. — Bobby had been the same, un- 
willing to wet his fur. 

No such scruples could affect the Otter 
and his mate. No sooner had they spied 
the gray-brown birds, with their white col- 
lars and their black heads and tails, than 
they swam up to them under water where 
the sentinel goose could not see them, and 
with one snap of his jaws the dog Otter 


50 Twifikly Eyes and the Lone Lake Folk 

grabbed the nearest bird, — and Twinkly 
Eyes, forgetting his lesson with the musk- 
rats, got so excited that he splashed right in 
and swam across to the islet to see the excite- 
ment. The Otters promply disappeared at 
the unusual sound. But the geese, with one 
accord, rose angrily and began beating the 
little bear about the head with their great 
wings, trying for a bite at him. For of 
course he was the only one they could see to 
blame. 


CHAPTER VII 


THE NAUGHTY COUSIN 

T WINKLY eyes studied the tracks 
that criss-crossed the rim of Lone 

Lake. 

Beside the foot-prints of his own fat little 
hind feet, (so like those a human child might 
make,) were tinier prints, as like his own as 
his were like his mother’s. — These tinier 
bear-like tracks, he knew, were those of his 
cousin Lotor, the raccoon. 

Lotor must have moved into some near-hy 
tree, handy to the fishing-grounds; and 
knowing his habit of sleeping by day and 
fishing all night long, Twinkly Eyes decided 
to watch, when the moon calme up, and see 
where Lotor was making his new home. 

So he chased his wee-bit tail awhile, and 
dug for violet roots; then he, too, went to 
sleep in a naked tree-top where he could 
snooze in the April sunshine rocked by every 

51 


52 Twirikly Eyes and the Lone Lake Folk 

little breeze, — ^though with one ear open, 
ready to hear the slightest sign of danger. 

But there was nowhere anything more 
alarming than the blue sky and the bird 
calls, and the odor of new young green 
things. 

That evening, just before the great, 
honey-colored disc of the moon rose from 
behind the East ridge of Mount Olaf, 
Twinkly Eyes hid himself behind two trees 
that grew close together, between which he 
could survey the lake shore. 

Soon there was a movement in the top of 
an old chestnut tree, and from a dark round 
hole a gray form glided, backing down the 
trunk tail first. 

‘‘Cousin Lotor,’’ Twinkly told himself. — 
He was followed by a second form, the new 
Mrs. Lotor, who backed down the tree, 
swinging her head from side to side just the 
way Mother Black Bear always did, as she 
tried to see on all sides at once. 

The two coons made straight for Clam 
Point, a neck of the lake where fresh-water 
clams were plentiful, — so plentiful, in fact. 


The Naughty Cousin 53 

that a little colony of muskrats had built 
their little mud tepees all along the hank. 

Lotor led the way to the clam bank, his 
fluffy, fox-like tail showing its dark rings 
in the moonlight, and the black patch across 
his eyes making his pointed little face look 
as if it wore a burglar’s mask. They made 
a handsome pair, though. They walked 
with the same swaying motion that marks 
the bear tribe, showing their kinship in their 
arching hips. Twinkly wished he were as 
clever at flnding clams as they were. His 
mouth watered as he watched them banquet- 
ing. 

Clever as monkeys with their hand-like 
paws, Lotor and his mate began a search of 
the clam beds, sitting down to eat their find 
with their backs against a log so that no one 
could surprise them from behind. They 
pried the shells apart when they could, pick- 
ing out the juicy morsels and eating with 
one paw. If a clam were hard to open, they 
hammered it on a rock. 

But what surprised Twinkly Eyes the 
most, (for he had never watched them quite 


54 Twinkly Eyes and the Lone Lake Folk 

so close before,) was that they washed each 
bivalve by sousing it up and down in the 
water. 

Hello, there!’’ he called presently, 
shuffling out into a patch of moonlight. 

‘‘Hello yourself,” chorused the clam dig- 
gers, in their queer little whinnying voices. 

“I see you are pretty careful what you 
eat,” said the little black bear. 

“We don’t believe in eating sand.” 

“That’s right. I shouldn’t myself. — 
Are you going to make your home in one of 
these hollow trees?” asked Twinkly in his 
pleasantest grunt. 

Mrs. Lotor only gave her husband a look 
that as much as said : ‘ ‘ Don ’t tell ! ’ ’ 

“Our home is already selected,” said 
Lotor cautiously. “But the Mrs., here, has 
decided to keep it a secret.” And Twinkly 
remembered that there were probably baby 
’coons. 

“But you don’t mind my knowing?” 
begged the little black bear. 

“A secret isn’t a secret if you tell it,” 
Mrs. Lotor smiled mysteriously. “I know 


The Naughty Cousin 55 

you are mostly a vegetarian, but — well, 
we’ve just simply made it a rule not to tell 
anyone at all, — not even you, cousin 
Twinkly Eyes.” 

The little black bear smiled craftily as he 
thought of the hollow chestnut tree. ‘‘It 
would only worry them if they knew I 
knew,” he decided. But it will be fun to 
watch that tree, once the ’coon cubs get big 
enough to be taken fishing.” (He decided 
to change the subject before he gave his own 
secret away.) 

After that he used to watch the hollow 
chestnut every night. But the little in- 
mates were still too young to be taken out. 
He did see something else, though, that filled 
him with amazement. 

This swampy part of the lake, that looked 
so quiet by day, was the busiest place you 
can imagine after dark. Out of each of 
those muskrat houses would come a whole 
family of these water rats. They would ap- 
pear suddenly, popping out of their secret 
doorways, — ^which were as often as not under 
water, — just the tips of their noses showing. 


56 Twinhly Eyes and the Lone Lake Folk 

They were funny fellows, as big as bun- 
nies, (not counting their flat tails). Their 
feet were webbed like ducks’, which made 
them expert swimmers. Their favorite 
food, too, seemed to be the little clams that 
they found under the bank. But instead of 
eating each one as they found it, they had a 
way of gathering a large pile and hiding it 
under a stone. 

Then one day he saw that which made him 
open his eyes in surprise. Lotor had been 
searching hungrily along the bank. Then 
suddenly, he came upon one of these hoards. 

‘‘Come on!” he whinnied to Mrs. Lotor. 

“Oh, you wicked thieves!” said Twinkly 
Eyes, wondering if he would have yielded to 
temptation himself, had he been hungry. 

But just then the angry rats discovered 
the way they had been made to share their 
surplus. Now the law of the woods is very 
strict in such matters, and they promptly 
set to work to punish the thieves, (who only 
escaped a bad biting by taking to the nearest 
tree.) 

Of course Twinkly, being found in such 


The Naughty Cousin 57 

company, came in for a share of the blame, 
— though the rats were afraid to do more 
than glare reproachfully at him, as they 
backed into the water. 


CHAPTER VIII 


THE PEACE MAKER 

L ittle couW Twinkly Eyes, crouched 
flat on an over-hanging limb, foresee 
how that night was to end ! 

From his airy perch he could see straight 
into the nests of the little brown-black 
ducks, who had chosen this quiet cove of 
Lone Lake for its wild rice and pond lily 
pads, — and because there were no muskrats 
near. 

This evening they were searching the 
muddy bottom for snails and clams and 
caddis worms. They looked so comical, as 
they stretched their heads down beneath the 
water with their tails tipped straight up 
into the air. Between dives, they spattered 
along the surface of the water, half flying 
and half running, quack-quack-quacking, 
everyone talking at once. 

Suddenly the old drake" who was on the 

58 


The Peace Maker 


59 


look-out announced the approach of a hawk, 
and they rose obliquely through the air, their 
wings whistling in the wind. It was amaz- 
ing how swiftly they could climb the sky. — 
That is, the drakes could! — Their mates 
stayed bravely on their nests among the 
reeds to keep the gray-green eggs warm, 
trusting to their quiet plmnage to keep them 
hidden. 

These leafy nests, Twinkly Eyes could see, 
were lined with something soft and white; 
but it was not until the hawk had passed and 
been forgotten, and h^ saw the little brown 
mother plucking the downy feathers from 
her breast, that he could guess what the lin- 
ing was made of. 

Twinkly watched the anxious little mother 
for awhile, then allowed his eyes to rove 
farther in-shore. Mercy ! What was that ? 
Inside a hollow stump on the bank beneath 
his hiding place, concealed by the tall flag 
lilies, a mother Mink had a cozy nest. At 
first Twinkly thought she must be a snake. 
Then he made out her long, furry body, with 
its narrow pointed head and flat little ears. 


60 Twinkly Eyes and the Lone Lake Folk 

He wondered if the brown duck could know ! 

Presently she went frog-hunting, and he 
could see that her feet were partly webbed, 
which made it easy for her to swim. 

Then there was a rustling of the grass 
stems which Twinkly knew meant a meadow 
mouse, and he was just about to drop down 
on it when Madame Mink leaped soundlessly 
from the water and began chasing it through 
its narrow runway in the grass. 

Now, as it happened, Whoo-Whoo, the 
great gray owl, was also after that mouse. 
Madame Mink, in the grassy tunnel, did not 
see the shadowy shape come winging to- 
wards them, and of course she couldn’t even 
hear the teeniest sound, because an owl 
makes no sound at all when he flies. 

Whoo-Whoo ’s great eyes gleamed hun- 
grily. For he had seen the mink. He 
would have a feast tonight! — Softly, softly, 
he swooped above her, his claws spread to 
grab her. He could catch a mouse any 
night, but mink was a rare treat. Swiftly 
he dropped to the ground and raked the run- 
way with his murderous foot. — But Madame 


The Peace Maker 


61 


Mink was not there. For at that very in- 
stant the tunnel had twisted down under- 
ground, and she had followed Mr. Meadow 
Mouse into the dark labyrinth. (A laby- 
rinth, you know, is a mysterious path that 
winds and twists and turns, this way and 
that, in the most confusing manner.) And 
that is just what Mr. Meadow Mouse had 
been racing for. If his pursuer had been 
even the size of a fox pup it would have been 
too large to follow. Not so with the mink. 
Her long, lithe body simply wriggled around 
each turn almost as easily as did his stubby 
one. No, Sir-ee, Madame Mink was not to 
be kept out by any hole large enough to hide 
a rat! 

Quite as if she knew that the owl still 
waited for her to poke her nose outside, she 
had no sooner finished with the mouse than 
she darted back along the tunnel to the 
water’s edge, and dove beneath the surface, 
where the owl could not follow. — There she 
waited, nose just barely above water, till 
Whoo-Whoo gave it up and went in pursuit 
of a rabbit. 


62 Twinkly Eyes and the Lone Lake Folk 

So far Twinkly’s sympathies had been 
with the mink. But he was soon to change 
his opinion of her. For no sooner had the 
wicked creature made sure the owl was gone 
than she sneaked into the brown duck’s nest, 
which Brownie had left only that moment 
while she dove for a clam. 

When poor Brownie came back, her four- 
teen eggs were smashed, and Madame 
Mink’s brown whiskers were stained with 
egg yolk. 

Twinkly Eyes was positively glad when 
he saw an otter creep out on the bank and 
dash along the musky-scented trail to the 
stump where Madame Mink lived. — But the 
Madame was not to be caught napping. 
Darting over the rim of the stump like light- 
ning, she leaped into the nearest tree, — ^the 
very one Twinkly Eyes was in, — and from 
that to another whose branches interlaced 
till they formed an aerial bridge. And so 
frightened was she that she employed her 
last means of self-defense, emitting such a 
dreadful odor that the otter made up his 


The Peace Maker 63 

mind he didn’t want mink for supper after 
aU. 

So far, so good, thought Twinkly Eyes. 
But hark ! — The otter, deprived of his first 
quarry, made a dash at Brownie, who stood 
sadly looking over her ruined nest, to see if 
there wasn’t at least one of the pretty eggs 
left for her to raise into a duckling. 

This was too much for the audience. A 
gleam of mischief crept into his eyes. With 
one mighty splash he dropped into the 
water, sending the otter, terrified, to the 
other end of the lake, and scaring even the 
little duck he had saved. 

Around on the other side of Lone Lake a 
very different scene was taking place. It 
seems that just across the neck of the lake 
from the little family in the chestnut tree, 
(Twinkly ’s cousin Lotor and his mate) , lived 
another family of raccoons. (They were 
Twinkly ’s cousins, too, — were Ringtail and 
Mrs. Ringtail.) Lotor had not known it 
when he moved, else he could have guessed 
that the fishing grounds might be claimed by 


64 Twinkly Eyes and the Lone Lake Folk 

someone else. As it was, no sooner had he 
and his bride begun fishing from the great 
log that here formed a bridge out into the 
water, drifting gently with one end moored 
by its upturned roots to the bank, than there 
was an angry whinnying from a rock ledge 
just across the way. 

Now Lotor had gone on a hunting trip 
with Ringtail only the autumn before. 
They had been two of a merry band that had 
raided the corn-field down at the Valley 
Farm. They had been the best of friends. 
But this was different. 

‘‘These are my fishing grounds,” Lotor 
began. “I got here first!” — And he really 
thought he had. 

“You did not!” 

“Well, you don’t own the lake.” 

“We own this corner of it, anyway.” 

And the first think Twinkly knew, the 
four were fairly making the fur fly. 

Suddenly his eyes began twinkling more 
than ever. Taking a high dive from an 
over-hanging limb, he splashed straight into 
the midst of the melee. 



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The Peace Maker 


65 


Alas, for the fate of the peace-maker! — 
He stopped the quarrel, — for the time, at 
least, — only to have all four raccoons turn on 
himself, too furious to know who it was they 
were fighting. 


CHAPTER IX 


‘‘cross as a bear” 

T WINKLY eyes had been chasing his 
shadow over the snow crust. 

For with the abundance of trout in Lone 
Lake, he had filled his tummy comfortably 
full and gone exploring. On the peak of 
Mount Olaf the snow still lay, stubborn to 
the spring sunshine. The sky was a bril- 
liant, cloudless blue, and the trees hung with 
icicles, which blazed like a forest of dia- 
monds in the sunshine. 

Around and around the fat little bear 
chased his lengthening shadow. At noon it 
had been easy to clutch it with his paw. 
Now it kept him whirling. — Suddenly his 
eye caught another shadow hovering above 
his own. For awhile he chased that too. 
Then, glancing up into the sky, his heart 
stood still! It was Baldy the eagle! 
Twinkly was not usually afraid of Baldy, 
66 


'Cross as a Bear' 


67 


though he had known Mother Black Bear to 
hide her cubs when they were small at his 
approach. — Indeed, he had often seen the 
giant bird wheeling through the sky to his 
eyrie on the mountain peak with a live fawn 
in his talons. And Twinkly remembered 
the affair of the trout! 

Now, though, he might have forgotten. 
Could Baldy really hurt anyone his size, he 
wondered ? — The shadow circled nearer. 
Twinkly began digging madly in an open 
space, pretending to catch field mice, but in 
reality to keep a shower of dirt fiying in a 
protective barrage. 

My, how he made the dirt fly! Grasping 
clods and rocks one at a time with his fore- 
paws, he hurled them back over his shoul- 
ders in a battery that no eagle would have 
dared approach, had his dinner depended 
on it. 

He could wait, thought Baldy, his eyes 
glowering wrathfully, as he perched in the 
top of a pine tree. 

Faster and faster worked the little black 
bear, clawing and kicking the dirt away like 


I 


68 Twinkly Eyes and the Lone Lake Folk 

a puppy, till he had frightened every mouse 
on the hillside into the far end of his 
farthest tunnel. 

Then, out of the tail of his eye, he noticed 
something that he had not seen before, — 
though it had been there all the time. Just 
an easy run down hill was a clump of the 
matted trees that crouched, no more than 
knee high, at timber line. As one comes up 
the mountain-side, the pines and spruces 
grow smaller and smaller, till at last one can 
gaze off across the valleys over their tops. 
Last of all come these tiny, flattened trees 
on their twisted trunks, barely able to cling 
to the soil against the beating of the winter 
wind. — ^After that, there is only a bit of 
green here and there among the rocks, — 
mountain cranberries and dwarf blueber- 
ries, mostly. 

Twinkly Byes took one deep breath, then 
galloped for his life, reaching out flat-footed 
with his fat hind legs in a way that nearly 
sent him head-over-heels. 

Hurray! He had made it! — Baldy’s 
wings whistled in the wind as he tried to get 


^"Cross as a Bear*" 


69 


there first. But his steel talons only 
grasped a clawful of spruce tree. Twinkly 
was safe, — saved by a tiny forest barely tall 
enough for him to walk on all fours with 
comfort. But if his roof was low, it was 
also close and warm, and cuddling down into 
a soft hollow out of the wind, he was soon 
sleeping the sleep of the happy-go-lucky,— 
while Baldy waited for him to come out ! 

The next morning the eagle had gone off 
on some other undertaking, and Twinkly 
Eyes was free to make his way back down 
the brook trail to the valleys where spring 
was already come. 

Breakfast had been caught and he was 
ready for play, when he noticed a round 
hole in an open patch. Now he had often 
watched his mother dig for wood-chucks. 
He sniffed carefully, to make sure it was not 
the home of Mephitis the skunk. No, he 
was safe on that score. His nose wasn’t 
quite sure it was a wood-chuck, yet what 
else could it be that would make so large a 
hole ? He began digging with his customary 
vigor. 


70 Twinkly Eyes and the Lone Lake Folk 

It proved to be a deep, winding burrow, 
and the sides were patted down as hard as 
if it had been occupied for years and years. 
Also, Twinkly Eyes was destined for a big 
surprise. For this burrow was the hohae of 
a family that he had never met. The chip- 
munks knew more about this family, — ^to 
their sorrow. So did the field mice and 
other wood folk who burrow for their 
homes. 

‘‘Look out, there, Twinkly Eyes!” called 
Tattletale the jay, who seemed to keep track 
of everything that went on in the woods. 
“You’re after a tough customer, if you are 
after Mrs. Badger.” 

“Mrs. Badger?” exclaimed Twinkly. 
“Who in the world is she?” 

“She’ll soon tell you who she is,” creaked 
Tattletale. 

“I’m sure I never heard of her before.” 

“I’m very sure you never did, else you 
wouldn’t be trying to dig her out. She 
never shows herself except at night.” 

“Huh!” sniffed the little bear. “Think 
I’m afraid of anyone her size?” 


71 


^'Cross as a Bear** 

‘‘Not even if it was Mephitis?’^ 

“Well — just so long as it isn’t — ” 

“She’s his cousin. You can tell by the 
white stripe down her nose. — Though her 
habits are different, thank goodness.” 

“Who’s habits?” suddenly exclaimed an 
angry voice. And Twinkly was confronted 
by a black furry face with not one, but three 
white stripes running down the pig-like 
nose. “Don’t you know you’ll wake the 
babies if you keep on digging up my front 
porch?” And she made a grab for 
Twinkly, setting her teeth into his tender 
nose. 

“G-r-r-r!” said the little black bear. 
“ Let go ! Ouch ! That hurts ! ’ ’ 

“I mean it to hurt,” growled Mrs. 
Badger. 

Twinkly tried to back away, but his host- 
ess only drew her broad body farther into 
the open. She was an enormous animal, 
with her thick fur, — or so she seemed to 
poor Twinkly. And her grizzled fur was so 
thick, and her legs were so short, and her 
claws were so long, and her teeth shone so 


72 Twinkly Eyes and the Lone Lake Folk 

sharp and fierce, that he wasn’t the least bit 
anxious to have it out with her. 

Twinkly whiinpered an apology. ‘‘I 
didn’t want your babies,” he tried to ex- 
plain. ‘‘I’m not hungry, really.” 

But that didn’t seem to be altogether the 
tactful thing to say, to judge by the way it 
made her gnash her teeth at him. Of course 
in order to gnash her teeth, though, she had 
to let go of his nose. Twinkly backed away, 
licking his injured member. 

“Come on, leave her alone,” shrilled Tat- 
tletale mischievously. “Can’t you see she’s 
‘as cross as a bear’?” 


CHAPTER X 


A LITTLE MISUNDERSTANDING 

T WINKLY eyes lay crouched along 
the limb of a tree, watching the clay- 
bank that bordered the sedgy lake shore. 
The sun warmed him blissfully, and he had 
fallen half asleep when suddenly he opened 
his eyes wide. The secret of the clay-bank 
lay before him ! 

High up on the side of the bank was a 
great round hole, much bigger than a wood- 
pecker’s. Suddenly out came a frowsy- 
looking head, with the feathers all sticking 
straight up, as if the bird had forgotten to 
brush his hair. The head was given a still 
more aggressive look by the long, heavy bill. 
Otherwise Twinkly Eyes might have taken 
it for simply a great big blue-jay. 

A moment more, and a bird not nearly so 
large as Twinkly had expected flew out 
above the water and uttered a harsh rattling 
cry. His head was so enormous that it 

73 


74 Twinkly Eyes and the Lone Lake Folk 

made him look top-lieavy. It was Mr, 
Kingfisher, beyond the shadow of a doubt. 

Hovering over a quiet pool that the little 
bear knew to be a favorite hiding-place for 
trout, the bird suddenly plunged headfirst 
into the water, splashing loudly as he did so. 
An instant more and he had reappeared 
with a tiny trout speared on his bill. Fly- 
ing straight to the overhanging branch of a 
tree, — ^what do you suppose he did? He 
hammered that fish against his perch till it 
ceased its fiapping and lay limp. Then, 
turning it about till he had it by the head, 
he swallowed his breakfast with one gulp. 
He caught another, then a third. The last 
was an awfully big fish for him to swallow, 
and Twinkly watched his struggles, believ- 
ing every moment that he would choke the 
next. But now he had it all down but the 
tail, which stuck out of his beak, while his 
eyes fairly popped with the effort he was 
making. Then slowly the tail disappeared, 
and the great bird blinked with satisfaction. 

Seeing how happy he looked, Twinkly 
ventured to call a greeting. 


A Little Misunderstanding 75 

“Kow I see why you’ve got such a big 
bill,” he remarked. But Mr. Kingfisher 
only turned with a frightened look and fiew 
away, with another of his harsh rattling 
cries. And he didn’t fiy in the direction of 
the clay-bank, either. 

“He’s afraid you’ll find his tunnel,” 
laughed Tattletale, who had perched further 
up on Twinkly’s tree. 

“His tunnel?” gasped the little black 
bear. 

“That’s what he digs with that bill of 
his.” 

“But — but — I thought birds lived in 
nests.” 

“He doesn’t.” 

“Oh, that’s why I saw him come out of 
the hole in the clay-bank. I wondered what 
on earth he was doing in there. But — does 
he keep the children in there too? I sup- 
pose there are children?” For in 
Twinkly’s experience every woods family 
had them, the more, the merrier. 

“Are there children?” jeered Tattletale. 
“You just watch till his mate brings them 


76 Twinkly Eyes and the Lone Lake Folk 

out. Ten of the funniest little frowsy- 
headed birdlets!” 

“My, I wish she’d bring them out today!” 
and Twinkly nearly fell off his perch as he 
craned his neck to watch. For at that mo- 
ment Mr. Kingfisher fiew back into the hole. 
But watch as he might, nothing happened, 
either that day or the next. 

The third day, Twinkly ahambled quietly 
over to the clay-bank and laid his wonderful 
ear to the ground. Sure enough, away 
down underneath, there was a faint sound 
that was like neither field-mouse nor any- 
thing else he had ever heard. He decided 
to dig around a little and see what he could 
see. 

Now cave-making comes easy to the king- 
fishers. They use those big bills of theirs 
to loosen the clay, then they can claw out 
whole tunnels with their feet. And before 
ever they hollow out the nursery, they dig 
a great long tunnel into the bank. 

Twinkly began digging away at the point 
where he could hear the sounds most plainly. 
Suddenly, as he lifted a flat stone, he un- 


A Little Misunderstanding 77 

covered a little round room that seemed to 
be strewn with the bones of dozens and hun- 
dreds of tiny fish. But it was not this evi- 
dence of the dinner hour that most inter- 
ested the little bear. No indeed, what made 
his mischievous eye grow round was the row 
of wee, top-heavy kingfisher birdlings, — 
queer, naked things with great, enormous 
bills just like their father’s. 

But Twinkly didn’t have long to stare, for 
the next thing he knew, he felt a stab of 
pain, and there was Mrs. Kingfisher, dart- 
ing at him with her great beak as if she 
would like to peck his eyes out. And as she 
flapped her wings at him, she uttered such a 
shrill, rattling cry that Mr. Kingfisher 
heard and came racing wrathfully from his 
fishing pool. 

‘‘You villain, you!” they shrilled, stab- 
bing at poor Twinkly till he had to dodge 
and duck as fast as possible to keep out of 
reach. “You’d eat our children, would 
you? Well, if you don’t go away this in- 
stant, we’ll peck your eyes out! — ^Sure as 
fate ! ’ ’ And every one of the ten little kings 


78 Twmkly Eyes and the Lone Lake Folk 

littered the same threat in his babyish rattle. 

^‘Please don’t/’ squealed the little bear, 
just wanted to see what was there. Hon- 
estly, I wouldn’t touch one of them — ” 

^‘Keep your distance, then!” warned the 
parent birds, flying at him till he had backed 
clear away. ‘^You’ve ruined the nursery, 
as it is. Come on. Father,” rattled Mrs. 
Kingfisher, ‘‘don’t waste any more time on 
him. The children will be catching cold if 
we don’t get thetoi under cover right away.” 

“As if anyone would want to eat the 
skinny things, anyway!” Twinkly muttered, 
“when there are so many water lily bulbs 
and everything. They’re all beaks, any- 
way! — ^But if I don’t get into one kind of 
trouble, I do another!” 

Then he waded out into the lake, till all 
but his face was under water, and peeked 
while the great birds dug a new nursery. 

Then he scrambled out and went to visit 
the musk-rat village, where he sat for hours 
in the drying sunshine, watching to see if 
the rats would come out. But they only 
peered warily at him from beneath the 


A Little Misunderstanding 79 

bank, wondering if he really expected them 
to show themselves in broad daylight, — 
while he waited, ready to grab them. 

Towards sundown he had some good fish- 
ing, standing in the riffles, concealed by a 
clump of reeds. With one quick stroke of 
his barbed fore-paw he would bat a fish to 
shore, then pounce upon it, and holding the 
slippery thing firmly between both feet, 
crunch it down head first. 

After that there were frogs to top off on. 
Squatting fiat on the over-hanging bank, he 
would feel along beneath the water’s edge 
with one fat paw, seizing the first live thing 
he touched, before ever it had time to jump. 

Then he climbed into a tree-top, where the 
night wind sung him to sleep, rocking his 
cradle delightfully. It had been a happy 
day, despite the little misunderstanding 
with the kingfisher family, — and on the 
morrow there would surely be something 
new going on ahiong the wood folk of Lone 
Lake. Little did he dream, — swinging 
away so peacefully, what an amazing thing 
was to happen ! 


CHAPTER XI 


THE JUGGLER 

T WINKLY eyes, the little black bear, 
was juggling with a floating log. 

It is curious how things happen in this 
world. If he hadn’t learned to juggle — but 
that would be telling too soon! 

At any rate, he was proving his title as 
clown of the woods. 

It had been a glorious day. He had be- 
gun by ripping a rotten log to pieces for the 
ants and grubs that he always found under- 
neath the loosened bark. He loved the fat, 
white, buttery grubs, and the vinegary-tast- 
ing little red ants. Together, they made a 
fine salad. After having torn a strip of the 
bark away, he would catch the ants by laying 
his paw on the log and holding still till the 
insects had climbed aboard for a taste of 
bear paw. When his fist was thickly cov- 
ered, he would carry it to his tongue and lick 
off a juicy mouthful. 

80 


The Juggler 


81 


Every now and again a grasshopper 
would whiz by, and alight on the ground be- 
side him. Slap would go his paw, and one 
more dainty would be carried to that greedy 
little mouth. Sometimes he chased the 
lively fellows, snapping his jaws at them 
like a puppy, as they hopped madly away 
in their effort to escape. Fat and awkward, 
the little bear would go tumbling after them, 
till suddenly his sharp ears would catch the 
soft squeak of a nestful of field mice. Then 
he would set to work and dig them out be- 
for they could make up their minds which 
way to fiee. He was a far better mouser 
than Bobby the Lynx kitten. Once, too, he 
came upon a bumblebee’s nest, and he ate 
that, clawing the angry bees from his nose, 
the only spot unprotected by his thick fur. 

There were pine buds, by way of dessert, 
— and new young alder bark, and balsam 
bark and fir and spruce buds. There was 
even an aspen sapling whose top he pulled 
down so he could nibble the tender new green 
shoots. In the open spaces there was juicy 
new young grass. There were catkins, too. 


82 Twinhly 'Eyes and the Lone Lake Folk 

and mushrooms. Best of all, down in the 
creek bed he found little round nests of fish 
eggs, too delicious for words! It had cer- 
tainly been a wonderful day for Twinkly 
Eyes! 

His appetite appeased, he chased a rabbit, 
just to tease her. Then he splashed naught- 
ily in among the ducks, and sent them fiying 
for their lives. 

Next he found a floating log and began 
juggling with it. First he tried to climb 
aboard one end, — and it was fortunate he 
didn’t mind a ducking. For of course his 
end went down while the other came up. 
Then he grabbed it by the middle and threw 
one leg across, but it rolled over with him, 
and he emerged blowing water with a series 
of strangled whoofs. 

The log had by this time floated into a lit- 
tle inlet, where the roots stuck into the 
bank, anchoring it at one end, and Twinkly 
swam ashore and tried to walk out on the 
bridge it made. But even his slight weight 
was enough to send it swirling. As he felt 
his perch slipping beneath him, he grasped 


83 


The Juggler 

the log in his strong little arms and waded 
ashore on his flat hind feet. Dragging his 
bridge a little way up the bank, with one 
end still in the stream, he once more tried 
to walk it, and this time he was more suc- 
cessful. 

Then he gave it a shove that sent it whirl- 
ing into midstream, and made a leap for it. 
As luck would have it, he landed squarely in 
the middle, and the log floated off like a raft. 
But suddenly, shooting over a tiny falls that 
fed a blue-green pool, it jammed in the rocks 
and came to a stand-still. 

The little bear puffed and panted till he 
pried it loose. The pool was not deep, and 
now he tried standing the log upright, like 
the trunk of a tree, to see if he could climb 
it. Again and again the silly fellow tried. 
— Perhaps you have seen the clown at the 
circus try to climb a ladder that way. But 
the little clown in fur only ended in a series 
of tumbles. Finally he got provoked at the 
log, and setting his teeth in the bark, shook 
it with all his might, growling ferociously. 

After that he climbed a pile of drift-wood 


84 Twinkly Eyes and the Lone Lake Folk 

that he found on the bank and pried out an- 
other log, but with no better luck. Still, he 
was having a jolly good time, and more im- 
portant — as we shall see — he was learning 
tricks that were to prove their worth before 
another day had passed. 

Now the banks of every brook that led 
into Lone Lake were piled with a debris of 
fallen logs and underbrush that the winter 
storms had torn off the ridges and washed 
into the gulches. With each spring freshet 
these logs were washed down the swollen 
streams into Lone Lake, there to find their 
way with the current into Rapid River. 
There was one hillside that was par-tic-u- 
lar-ly bad, where the forest fire had swept 
the year before, leaving whole trees charred 
and ready to fall in the first heavy wind. 

So far this spring there had been no 
freshet, though the rapidly melting snow 
had raised the streams tremendously. Sud- 
denly, in the chill gray of dawn, a terrific 
thunder storm came rolling into the sky, and 
Twinkly, trying to snooze on an old beaver 
dam, covered his eyes with his paws to 


85 


The Juggler 

keep out the blinding flashes. But the thun- 
der was even worse, and after each peal he 
rubbed his sensitive ears unhappily. 

Then the rain came, — great, cold splashes 
of it, with such a wind that when he tried to 
make for shelter, his feet were fairly blown 
from under him, and he slipped into the 
churning ^vater. — My, how it rained! In- 
stead of coming down in drops, it came in 
sheets, each drop seeming to reach to the 
next one. It came so fast, and it came so 
wet, that Twinkly could hardly draw his 
breath. He puffed and panted in his effort 
not to swallow the whole storm. 

Never had he known such a rain. — 
Neither, for that matter, had Mother Black 
Bear, huddled close about the two new baby 
cubs, who were shivering with cold and 
fright in the den at the head of the brook- 
bed. The reason was that this was not a 
regular rain at all. It was something that 
doesn’t happen once in a life-time. It was 
a regular cloud-burst. And the water came 
down so fast, and the ground was soaked so 
full of melted snow, that it couldn’t begin to 


86 TwifMy Eyes and the Lone Lake Folk 

sink in. It simply rolled off those hill-sides 
in sheets. 

Into the brook beds it poured, and into 
the Lake rushed the flooded brooks; and 
higher and higher rose the foaming waters. 
Everything was flooded. Mother Black 
Bear suddenly realized that the water had 
risen till it wetted her cave floor. It might 
fill the cave any minute ! 

As for poor Twinkly Eyes, it simply 
washed him off into the Brook like a chip of 
wood. Then it churned him around so fast 
that he couldn’t even begin to swim. He 
was just able to grasp a floating log. 

The next instant, another log came sivirl- 
ing by, struck against the one he was cling- 
ing to, up-ended, and hit him tvhack! across 
the head! 

‘‘Troubles never do come singly,” gasped 
the little black bear. 


CHAPTER XII 


THE FRESHET 

I T had indeed been a cloud-burst ! 

It had flooded the streams and sent 
poor Twinkly Eyes off over the muddy 
waters with his arms clasped tight about a 
floating log. And Beaver Brook ran as full 
and as fast as Rapid River, and Lone Lake 
had waves like the ocean. 

Fortunately for such of the wood folk as 
had been caught too near the rising waters, 
the streams were full of floating logs. But 
unfortunately, the logs were piling up on 
one another in a way that made rafting dan- 
gerous. The little bear had received one 
knock on his head that had raised a fearful 
welt, and he had to balance like an acrobat to 
keep a-top his log. On every side was the 
grinding of one piece of drift-wood against 
another, as they bumped and scraped to- 
gether in their mad rush down-stream. 

87 


88 Twinkly Eyes and the Lone Lake Folk 

Mother Black Bear whimpered anxiously 
as the waters rose to the floor of her cave at 
the head of the brook. Then she called to 
her cubs, — the wee, velvety fellows, — and 
taking Bluff, the tiniest one, in her mouth, 
paddled out of the dripping cave and up the 
bank. 

Dropping him into the crotch of a low- 
branching tree, she turned to bring Boxer, 
the larger cub. But already the water had 
risen so high that he had floated out into the 
stream. After him she plunged, fearing 
every instant he would sink. 

Grabbing him by the back of the neck, she 
swung him to her back with one calculating 
twist of her head, and bade him cling with 
all fours. 

Back up the bank she scrambled with 
Bluff. Then, taking him in her jaws, she 
made for a hollow tree, whose opening, about 
two feet from the ground, had not let the 
water in. There she crouched, covering the 
two wet, shivering mites with her own warm 
body, as she thrust her shoulders into the 
opening, — by way of shutting the door. 


The Freshet 


89 


She would lick them dry with her rough, 
cat-like tongue ; and they, being husky little 
wild-wood babies, would suffer no ill effects. 

But Mother Black Bear’s family was not 
the only one that got flooded out of house 
and home. The Otters’ nest was flooded, 
too, and Father and Mother Otter each had 
to take a pup in their jaws and swim with 
them to a bit of drift-wood, — where Mrs. 
Otter promptly set to work to nurse her 
babies, who were mewing hungrily. 

The musk-rats, too, had been drowned out 
of their villa, their muddy little hay-stacks 
of houses having fllled with water till their 
owners had to climb out the chimneys with 
their ratlets in their jaws. There were so 
many ratlets, too! At any other time it 
would have made Twinkly’s mouth water. 
But their common danger had called a truce. 
Each drenched animal was too anxious 
about coming through alive to think of food. 

Snapper the turtle minded the freshet 
less than any of the wood folk whose home 
had been around Lone Lake. She was al- 
most like a fish, she could stay under water 


90 Twinkly Eyes and the Lone Lake Folk 

so long. And when the waves tossed her 
against the floating logs, her hard shell pro- 
tected her from bruises. 

Twinkly tried his best to paddle his log 
in another direction when he saw Snapper 
coming, but it was no use. The current was 
too strong for him, and the turtle’s snaky 
eyes gleamed evilly as she climbed aboard 
one end of his raft. It was the rear end, 
but Twinkly promptly turned himself about, 
preferring to float backward in order that 
he might face her, for he did not trust her. 
She eyed him crossly, thinking of her eggs 
hidden in the sand. They would now be 
drowned unhatched. And she remembered 
the little affair with the Pike, — for which, 
unfairly enough, she blamed Twinkly Eyes. 
— The latter decided to keep a weather eye 
out for a better log. 

The little black ducks had to leave their 
eggs and go swimming away to safety. But 
Mrs. Mink, whose home in the hollow stump 
was now many feet under water, was so busy 
trying to keep her one surviving minklet 


The Freshet 


91 


afloat on a drifting branch that she never 
once thought of trying to harm them. 

Father and Mother Lotor, the raccoons, 
peered anxiously from the hole in the hollow 
chestnut tree, as the lake rose higher and 
higher. For whimpering and whinnying 
inside were the four little ’coons, their wee 
faces marked with the same black patch as 
Father’s, and striped tails ringed with the 
family trade-mark. With their hand-like 
paws they scrambled up the inside of the 
tree-trunk, and clinging to their parents’ 
backs, took turns peeking. 

Across the arm of the lake, — across the 
disputed Ashing grounds, Eingtail and Mrs. 
Eingtail, the other family of raccoons, 
peered across at the Lotors, calling greet- 
ings and encouragement, their little quarrel 
forgotten in their common plight. 

Frisky Fox had made for his cave on the 
ridge the moment he knew that a storm was 
coming, and Fleet Foot the doe and her 
fawns always slept on a hilltop, so that they 
were safe enough. But Me-phi-tis the 


92 Twinkly Eyes and the Lone Lake Folk 

skunk and cross old Mrs. Badger and their 
families were flooded out of their under- 
ground dens and had to scramble up the hill- 
side, ‘‘madder than wet hens,” as the saying 
goes. 

“I’m thankful for one thing,” said 
Twinkly Eyes, “I’m glad it isn’t Mephitis 
on the other end of my log. I’d much 
rather it were Snapper.” 

Baldy the eagle and Mrs. Baldy were ter- 
ribly worried, the rain was beating so hard 
into their nest on Mount Olaf. A little 
more, and the great structure would be 
washed away, and the great, featherless 
eaglets not able to fly. The parent birds 
took turns sitting with oiled wings tight 
spread over the frightened youngsters, their 
eyes gleaming in the lightning flashes. Be- 
tween the volleys of thunder that echoed 
from peak to peak, they uttered despairing 
screams: Even the Ospreys, whom they 
robbed so mercilessly, would have been sorry 
for them now, for they were just as worried 
over their own nest in the tree-top down by 
Lone Lake. 


The Freshet 


93 


There were myriads of field mice who 
were washed out of their tunnels and into 
the lake before ever they could scramble up- 
hill to safety. These now swam for their 
lives everywhere about Twinkly’s raft, some 
of them actually climbing aboard. He 
would have found breakfast an easy matter 
if he had been hungry. But the truce held. 
It was life and death for everyone. 

The only soul of all that throng of refu- 
gees who remained calm and indifferent was 
Unk Wunk the porcupine whose hollow 
quiUs floated him comfortably amidst the 
excitement. 


CHAPTER XIII 


THE END OF THE TRUCE 

E veryone was terrified save Twinkly 
Eyes. 

That mischievous young acrobat had al- 
ready learned to balance on a fioating log, 
and he was beginning to enjoy the excite- 
ment. He had leaped from one log to an- 
other till he rode a branching tree trunk. 
Against the branches, other logs were piling 
up in a way that was choking the outlet of 
the lake and making the fiood far more dan- 
gerous. But with a biff! biff! biff! he 
knocked each newcomer away till the danger 
of a log- jam was past. — Indeed, it may be 
that the naughty fellow was sorry there were 
not more logs for him to biff ! For with one 
shove of his powerful little fore-arm he 
could send a visiting log back home again. 

The rain ceased, the wind veered ’round, 
and the lake, though it would be swollen for 

94 


95 


The End of the Truce 

many a day, was quieter. Later, the sun 
fought its way through the clouds. 

While the warmth and light cheered most 
of the refugees immensely, it terrified the 
Otter family almost more than had the 
cloud-burst. For they are night people, lov- 
ing darkness, hating to show themselves by 
day. 

Had Father and Mother Otter been alone, 
they could easily have made a series of dives 
beneath the fioating logs and swam away to 
some new home along the muddy shore. Or 
had an enemy attacked them, they could 
have put up a first class fight. But there 
were the four pups. 

Now Father and Mother Otter could each 
have taken a pup in their mouths while they 
swam to safety. But that would have 
meant leaving the other two behind, and no 
telling what might happen to them there, 
alone, on their raft, — the wee, velvet things, 
— with so many creatures about that would 
like to make a meal of them. 

Then an idea came to Mother Otter. 
First she took one pup to shore and hid it 


96 Twinkly Eyes and the Lone Lake Folk 

away in a cranny of the rocks, while she left 
Father Otter to guard the other three. On 
her return, still leaving him on guard, she 
got a second. After that they each took one 
of the two remaining pups to safety. 

The ducks rode the flood like so many toy 
boats, though they were dreadfully uneasy 
at finding themselves among so many of 
their enemies. But then, they could always 
fly away. 

As for Lotor and Eingtail, the raccoons, 
couched high up in their hollow trees, — for 
fear the waters should creep clear to their 
entrance holes, they led their cubs still 
higher, into the top-most branches. 

Such funny little whines and whinnies as 
those little ’coons gave, as they dug their 
claws into the bark! It was such a terrify- 
ing world of gray-green water, churning 
with logs and alive with swimming animals ! 

Twinkly Eyes began to wonder if he could 
not paddle his log to shore. Dangling his 
broad little palms in the water, as he lay 
crouched astride his tree-trunk, he tried to 
row. But the branches were too heavy. 


97 


The End of the Truce 

Quick to reason out the trouble, he leaped to 
a smaller log, one that floated without 
branches. But it was slow work. Finally 
he plunged in and swam to a shelving bank. 

But now a gleam of mischief twinkled in 
his eye. For passing on a floating bit of 
driftwood not far from shore, he could see 
the little row of kingfishers. They had been 
driven from their home in the mud bank and 
forced to take refuge like the rest. 

Mother Kingfisher was most distressed, 
for of course the babies could not fly, and 
she saw no way of getting them to shore. 
’Bound and ’round above them she hovered, 
uttering the most mournful cries, while 
they, poor hungry waifs, gazed up at her 
with great, round, trusting eyes, their beaks 
open for the breakfast they expected her to 
bring them. 

Twinkly reached out from an overhang- 
ing shelf of the ledge, pawing at the water to 
create a current, — not much of one, but 
enough to bring the log his way. Finally he 
could barely reach its forward end ; and set- 
ting his sharp claws into the bark, he drew 


98 Twinkly Eyes and the Lone Lake Folk 

it to him, thinking to tease the pair that had 
so threatened his eye-sight. 

Mother Kingfisher watched with a curious 
gleam in her eyes. At first she was afraid 
he meant to harm her fiedglings. Then to 
her also came a bright idea! Uttering a 
quick, sharp command, the moment she saw 
a corner of the log touch shore, she made the 
whole row of top-heavy fiedglings run along 
the log and leap to shore. 

To them the little black bear had been a 
god-send. 

As for Twinkly Eyes, another log came 
floating by, and on it, a whole colony of field 
mice. Now Twinkly was considered a walk- 
ing mouse-trap. Again the rascal reached 
out a paw and coaxed the log a little nearer. 

‘‘My! I can feast off these fellows for a 
week!” he was just telling himself, when to 
his amazement the mice began leaping to 
land. He had forgotten they could jump so 
far. '“The impudent things!” he thought, 
turning a somersault after the one whose 
tail had tickled his nose. 

But so swift were they, and so desperate, 


99 


The End of the Truce 

that most of them were scuttling up the bank 
behind him before he half realized that they 
had escaped him. ‘‘Just my luck!’’ he 
growled deep down in his throat. “I should 
have left them on their raft.” 

But the mice were mighty glad, let me tell 
you, that rescue had come in such a surpris- 
ing fashion. 

The day passed. One by one the refugees 
made their way to safety, and found them- 
selves new homes on the receding shore-line 
of Lone Lake. 

There was just one member of the little 
colony who was missing. Madame Mink 
and her baby had floated clear through the 
outlet of the lake into Rapid River, and they 
had to locate away down stream, where the 
murderous little creatures could no longer 
prey upon the ducks and other small folk. 
No one regretted their departure from the 
neighborhood, I can assure you. 

Mother Black Bear no sooner saw the 
waters of the flood cease rising than she de- 
cided to wait no longer to give Bluff and 
Boxer swimming lessons. And that very 


100 Twinhly Eyes and the Lone Lake Folk 

afternoon she led the droll chaps to a warm 
shallow, where they were soon mimicking 
their teacher in every move she made, (or 
getting spanked if they refused to try.) 

Twinkly Eyes, who had perched in a tree- 
top where he could watch it all, enjoyed it 
hugely, — especially the spankings. 

‘‘It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good,” 
he told himself. 

I 


CHAPTEE XIV 


THE SUGAR CAMP 

T WINKLY eyes, waking from his all- 
day nap beneath the roots of the giant 
maple tree, suddenly sat up and sniffed. 

What could that delicious odor be ? — Half 
sweet, half pungent, on the damp night air, 
it brought back memories of last October, 
when he had come upon the deserted shack 
and found the maple-sugar cask. 

That’s -it!” he told himself, licking his 
chops at the memory. ‘‘Maple sugar! — 
But where can it be?” 

Shuffling forth into the April moonlight, 
he gazed off down the slope of Mount Olaf, 
whose woods shone in their silver frost- 
work. 

Pussy-footing it along in the shadows, — 
just in case he might stumble on a sleeping 
grouse cock, — he made for the spot whence 

the odor blew strongest. And his merry 
101 


102 Twinkly Eyes and the Lone Lake Folk 

black eyes danced at thought of the treat he 
would have. For of all the wood folk, this 
little backwoods boy in fur had the biggest 
sweet tooth. 

Now Twinkly Byes had never seen a hu- 
man being, save once or twice the year be- 
fore, when he had watched a queer little 
animal who walked on his hind legs all the 
way, and whistled, and who, instead of wad- 
ing into the river and catching his fish in 
his claws, had thrust a long pole with a 
string on the end of it over the water. The 
fish had mysteriously appeared at the end 
of this string. It was all most puzzling. 

To-night a new odor was beginning to 
mingle with the sugary scent, and his clever 
nose told him that he would find that same 
queer little man cub on whom he had spied 
at the trout pool. It would therefore be well 
to approach with caution. The man cub 
had not looked dangerous. But he was 
capable of chasing: — and you never could 
tell! Twinkly knew all about the folk in 
fur and feathers, (Bobby Lynx, and Fleet 
Foot the doe, and Lotor and Eingtail the 


103 


The Sugar Camp 

Raccoons, to say nothing of the smaller folk. 
Of these he had no fear, — ^though it would 
have taken a good deal to make him go too 
near either Unk Wunk the porcupine or 
Mephitis the skunk, after what had hap- 
pened.) But though the man cub seemed 
to have neither claws nor anything else that 
could hurt one. Mother Black Bear’s young 
hopeful” was a bit wary. 

He therefore approached as soundlessly 
as a shadow. There where the scent lay 
strongest stood a brand new log cabin which 
Twinkly Eyes supposed must be the den of 
the man cub. J ust beyond hung a huge iron 
kettle beneath which mysterious red embers 
were still glowing. It was from this, and 
from the many birch bark pails, that the 
sugary smell arose. 

These were filled, some of them, with a 
brown, wateiy-looking fiuid, which proved 
sticky on one ’s paw. My ! How wonderful 
it tasted! Twinkly dipped his fist again 
and again, licking it joyously (with an ear 
open for any sign of the man cub’s awaken- 
ing). 


104 Twinkly Eyes and the Lone Lake Folk 

There was a shiny basin, too, with a hard- 
looking sweet stuif inside. Twinkly Byes 
reached to investigate, when suddenly — 
bang! clang! — it went rolling to the stony 
ground. 

The next instant there were voices inside 
the cabin, a light was struck, and a man’s 
voice rumbled : ‘ ‘ Must be a bear ! Where ’s 
my gun?” 

‘‘No, Jake ! — Don’t shoot !” urged the man 
cub’s treble voice. But Twinkly Eyes of 
course did not understand. He only knew 
that there were two of the man creatures, 
and that he must run. 

(Besides, the Hired Man had paid not the 
slightest heed to the Boy. Gun in hand, he 
was soon in hot pursuit). 

Now bears can run up-hill the fastest of 
anything alive. Straight up the mountain- 
side ran the little black bear. Jake fol- 
lowed pantingly. 

“Just my luck!” thought Twinkly Eyes. 
“Trust me to get into trouble if there’s any 
trouble anywhere about to get into.” 

But he was as clever as a fox at throwing 


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105 


The Sugar Camp 

a pursuer off the trail. He had learned 
something from watching Frisky Fox. 
First he would jump sidewise, leaving a 
patch of smooth white snow, without the 
sign of his little bare foot-prints for Jake 
to follow. Then he would come to a 
boulder, and hiding behind it till the man 
had passed, speed off in quite another di- 
rection. Jake, hearing the crashing in the 
underbrush behind him, would turn and 
come back. But by this time Twinkly Eyes 
would have disappeared, and the bewildered 
J ake could only stare into the open patches 
where the moon shone brightest, and won- 
der what had become of the little syrup 
thief. 

Still, he had the black thunder-stick. 
This Twinkly discovered when Jake sud- 
denly caught sight of the rascal scrambling 
up a tree, and the stick spoke fire and made 
his hind leg feel as if a bee had stung it, the 
bullet cutting a little nick out of his furry 
hide. 

Quickest of all the wood folk to see the 
reason why, Twinkly Eyes flung himself flat 


106 Twinkly Eyes and the Lone Lake Folk 

into the snow-bank where the. black stick 
could not see him. 

Thus it happened that, before ever Jake 
had given up the hunt, Twinkly Eyes was 
back at the bark pails, dipping his good 
right fore paw again and again into the 
sweet sap, and licking it happily as he lis- 
tened to the heavy breathing of the sleeping 
man cub within the cabin. 

But you may depend upon it that his lit- 
tle round ears heard Jake’s returning foot- 
steps, and long before the thunder-stick was 
near enough to see him, he had made off on 
noiseless feet (content to wait till the next 
night for more) . 

^‘Well, I’ll be jinged!” exclaimed the 
Hired Man, as he saw Twinkly ’s new-made 
tracks. ‘‘If that bear hasn’t been back here 
again ! — Just let him try it to-morrow night ! 
That’s all I can say!” 

He could hardly wait to collect the sap 
pails, next morning, and start the stuff to 
boiling, till he was setting a great steel bear- 
trap in readiness to catch anyone who came 
too near the sugar camp. 


CHAPTER XV 


BLUFF AND BOXER 

T he two fat cubs, Bluff and Boxer, sat 
on the bank watching Mother Black 
Bear fish. 

Ah! There was a movement just under 
that root ! Clapping her barbed paw at the 
hiding trout, she flipped it to the bank, land- 
ing it squarely between the two youngsters. 

As the silvery form flashed through the 
sunny air, both cubs made a grab for it, — 
and both got it. Bluff by one end and Boxer 
by the other. But not before they had 
bumped their heads sharply together. 

^‘Woof ! Woof!’’ growled Bluff angrily, 
in his high-pitched little voice. Then the 
pair stood up and began to fight. 

First they clinched, each struggling for 
a chance to bite the other. Next they broke 
away so suddenly that Bluff turned a som- 
ersault. 


107 


108 Twinkly Eyes and the Lone Lake Folk 

Before he could get to his feet again, 
Boxer was upon him, and again they 
struggled, cuffing and biting and wrestling 
like two fat puppies. 

‘‘Here! Enough of that!’^ suddenly 
roared Mother Black Bear, spanking them 
soundly with the flat of her fore-paw. Bit- 
ing the flapping fish in two, she bade them 
sit down side by side and taste it politely. 

The cubs hung their heads in shame, for 
Mother had put them on their good be- 
haviour before she took them fishing. Tak- 
ing each his piece in his paws, he munched 
at it meekly, though eyeing his brother out 
of the tail of his eye for the first sign of 
grabbing. 

They certainly were handsome babies, 
thought Mother Black Bear. Their silky 
fur shone glossy where she had licked it 
smooth, and their eyes danced with mis- 
chief. Just now they were well-behaved, 
— ^but wait till her back was turned again! 

That night she decided to visit the maple 
sugar camp, leaving Bluff and Boxer curled 
into one warm ball under the root of a tree. 


109 


Bluff and Boxer 

Woods babies seldom disobey, and they 
waited right there for her return. But it 
was morning now; the glow of the rising 
sun had started all the birds to singing ; and 
the two cubs whined hungrily. 

‘‘Mother! Mother!’’ called Bluff, rising 
to his funny little fat hind legs and listen- 
ing, with his paws on his chest. 

Boxer, raising his roly-poly self on tip- 
toe, swung his fuzzy head from side to side 
as he tested the breeze. But no message did 
it bring from Mother, and their eyes grew 
wide with fear. What had happened ? 
Wasn’t she ever coming back? For they 
were fairly famished. 

Suddenly down the mossy trail a figure 
swung into view. It was clad in fiannel 
shirt and overalls, and had moosehide lar- 
rigans on its feet. 

Neither cub had ever seen a man before, 
and they shrank back, trembling. But the 
trapper passed, and nothing happened. 
Had he been half as keen as Old Man Lynx, 
he would surely have discovered them, they 
told themselves. He must be very stupid. 


110 Twinkly Eyes and the Lone Lake Folk 

and hence not to be feared, even if he was 
so big. 

The cubs had not yet been weaned. But 
when the wind that blew down the ravine 
brought to their nostrils the perf mne of fresh 
maple sap, they just knew that it was some- 
thing good to eat. For it made their 
mouths water, and they were just simply 
so hungry that it hurt. 

To their surprise, as the delicious odor 
came nearer and nearer, so did the man, 
who now swung back down the trail with 
a birch-bark pail in either hand. 

‘‘Let’s stop him and get some of that!” 
said Bluff. “I’m going to jump out and 
growl at him!” (But he didn’t really 
mean it. He was only trying to bluff his 
brother.) 

“Yes, you are!” sniffed Boxer unbeliev- 
ingly, “And a lot of good it would do you. 
Why, an animal that size could eat you in 
two mouthfuls.” 

“He won’t, though,” Bluff declared. 
“He can’t be very hungry, when he has that 
stuff.” 


Ill 


Bluff and Boxer 

And so starved and lonely were they that 
they finally decided to trust him. 

That is how it came about that Pierre the 
trapper, returning with his sap, was sud- 
denly confronted with two wee black cubs 
(whom he would have taken for puppies, 
had it not been so deep in the woods) . 

Looking up into his face trustingly, they 
stood motionless in the path, paws on 
breast, while he set his pails down and knelt 
to peer at them through the gathering dusk. 

Their next move struck him speechless 
with surprise. Timidly Boxer shuffled to- 
wards him, sniffed warily at the nearest 
pail, and began licking the side where the 
sap had spilled. Bluff held hack, whining 
inquiringly, but prepared to run. 

“Well, I never!” gasped the man at last. 
“You poor little mites!” And with a gen- 
tleness that was new to him he gathered the 
orphans into his arms and marched back to 
his cabin. 

There a saucerful of canned milk was 
warmed and placed on the floor behind the 
stove, and Pierre thrust their noses into the 


112 Twinkly Eyes and the Lone Lake Folk 

inviting fluid. There was a twin gurgle of 
delight, and the next moment the two cubs 
were sneezing and spluttering in their eag- 
erness as they tried to suck it up. — It took 
a little practise to learn how to lap. 

‘‘Well, I never!” the trapper kept ex- 
claiming under his breath. At last he had 
put the cubs to bed in a box padded with an 
old sweater, where they fell asleep whimper- 
ing for the warm furry mother who did not 
come. 

Meantime where was Mother Black Bear ? 
Tip-toeing cautiously about the sugar camp, 
her mouth watering for a taste of the sweet 
sap, she had suddenly felt a sharp pain in 
her fore-paw. — She had stepped into the old 
trap, which lay hidden under the leaves! 

My, how she fought and struggled to get 
free! Again and again she strove to pull 
her paw out. Fiercely she gnawed at the 
steel thing. Angrily she tried to claw it to 
pieces. But it was no use. She was a 
prisoner! The best she could do was to 
drag it with her. 

Now the Hired Man had foreseen that she 


113 


Bluff and Boxer 

would do this very thing. To prevent her 
dragging herself and the trap away off 
somewhere, he had chained the trap to the 
butt of a fallen tree. Of course now she 
had to drag the whole log with her. 

Then she saw two trees that grew close 
together, and it occurred to her that if she 
were to go between those trees, the branches 
of the log would get caught, and she would 
have something to pull against. This is 
just what happened. But even that did no 
good. She could not pull her fingers loose, 
try how she might. 

Frantic at thought of her babies, who 
would starve, or get caught, if she did not 
come back, she was desperate enough to have 
gnawed her paw off and left it there. But 
fortunately, at that moment, Twinkly Eyes, 
her yearling cub, came shuffling up to her. 

‘‘This is queer,” he grunted. “Just let 
me see, now, what the trouble is,” and he set 
to work to investigate what it was that held 
her fast. But even he could find no way 
to solve the mystery. Plainly the sugar 
camp was a dangerous place. 


114 Twinkly Eyes and the Lone Lake Folk 

Now, as it happened, the trap was a rusty 
old affair that hadn’t been used for years. 
It also happened that Mother Black Bear 
was the champion boxer of all the woods 
around. Her great body was so strong and 
muscular that with one blow of her fore-paw 
she could smash a rotten log to smithereens. 
And you can imagine that she did not spare 
the trap. 

My, how she banged and battered that 
rusty old affair about, whacking it now 
against a tree trunk, now against a stone. 
At first the old trap held. The moon trav- 
eled clear across the sky, and still she was a 
prisoner. Her fore-arm hurt like the tooth 
ache. Now the morning star was all that 
showed in the paling sky. — Then a spiral of 
smoke rose from the cabin chimney! .The 
Man would come now and put a finish to her ! 

Too frenzied even to feel the pain, she 
banged the trap with all her might on a 
stone. — This time something gave way ! 
She could feel the rusty steel jaws easing 
up ever so little on her fore-paw. 

Mother Black Bear needed no urging to 


Bluff and Boxer 115 

pull her tortured fingers loose, and she was 
free! 

Limping on three legs, she raced to where 
she had left her babies. 

They were gone ! — Gone with one of those 
terrifying human creatures, too ! (Her 
nose told her that). 

She moaned heart-brokenly, then started 
to follow where the trapper had gone. 


CHAPTER XVI 


A GOOD RESOLUTION 

T he cubs awoke at dawn, when the trap- 
per made Ms breakfast and gave them 
theirs. 

Then they found themselves alone in the 
cabin. At first they did not mind. For the 
place was full of the most delicious smells. 
Though of course they didn’t know what it 
was, there was bacon hanging from the raft- 
ers, a great long loaf of black bread, and 
onions on long strings. 

What interested them even more was that 
same fragant odor that had come from the 
sap pails the night before. They were not 
long in discovering that this time it came 
from up on the table, whose red cloth was 
laid with shining aluminum ware. 

Bluff climbed up the leg of the bunk, on 
whose balsam boughs Pierre had slept. 

Prom there he found it an easy leap to the 
116 


A Good Resolution 


117 


table, and in a moment more his little 
pointed nose was thrust deep into the syrup 
pitcher, and his black eyes were twinkling 
in delight. For with his pink tongue he was 
having a wonderful experience. 

Boxer rose on his hind legs inquiringly. 
Then, seeing that his brother was enjoying 
himself so hugely, he started to climb the 
table leg. But his little claws only caught 
in the red table cloth, pulling it off with all 
its pans and plates tumbling about his ears. 

Bluff, his head fast wedged in the syrup 
pitcher, had his feet suddenly dragged from 
under him, and over he rolled, pitcher, 
syrup, and all, into the struggling mass that 
was Boxer and the red table cloth. 

When finally he got his head free, without 
even stopping to lick off the syrup that now 
dripped from his fur, he pitched into Boxer, 
whom he blamed for his fall. 

The trapper, returning at this moment, 
found them cuffing and boxing each other 
angrily about the syrupy cabin. 

The cubs were startled by shouts of laugh- 
ter, which frightened them so that they crept 


118 Twinkly Eyes and the Lone Lake Folk 

to the darkest corner under the bunk, and 
crouched trelnbling there in each other’s 
arms. 

The next surprise came in the form of a 
pail of warm, soapy water, into which 
Pierre gently inserted the small Bluff. At 
first the water was so nearly the same 
warmth as the air that the tiny rascal didn’t 
know anything was happening to him. But 
the instant he realized that he was getting 
a bath, he gave one wild leap, that upset the 
pail over the syrupy fioor, and sent the drip- 
ping cub through the open door into the sun- 
shine. 

Nor did he stop running till he realized 
he was alone. Then he hid under a tree 
root and took a nap while his fur dried all 
soft and fiuffy again. 

When he woke up he was hungry, and with 
memories of the saucerful of milk to lend 
him courage, he followed his own foot-steps 
back to the cabin. 

Boxer, meantime, after having seen what 
had happened to his brother, had decided he 
was better off under the bed, and had only 


A Good Resolution 119 

growled and refused to budge when the 
trapper gently tried to pry him out. 

So Pierre, laughing mightily, had 
scrubbed the floor and washed his dishes and 
red tablecloth, and had then gone away, 
leaving the door tight latched behind him. 

Little did he dream, as he brought in his 
traps that morning (for it would soon be 
time to return to the settlements), that a 
huge black form, with teeth that snarled 
silently, was nosing this way and that along 
the trails over which he had tramped. 

Had Mother Black Bear come upon him 
when he was poking the cub, there is no tell- 
ing what she might not have done to him, so 
fearful was she that he meant harm to her 
babies. But luckily for Pierre, his trail had 
wound about so over the whole ravine that 
she did not come to the cabin till he had gone, 
leaving the cub inside. 

Even then her attention was distracted by 
a joyous little whine, as Bluff came gallop- 
ing down the wind to her. 

My, how tenderly she greeted him ! How 
anxiously she nosed him over, reading the 


120 Twinkly Eyes and the Lone Lake Folk 

whole story of the man and the syrup 
pitcher and the pail of soap and water on 
his fur ! 

Then Boxer’s lonesome squeal came to her 
eager ears, and spanking Bluff up into the 
nearest tree to wait for her return, she raced 
to the other little fellow’s rescue. 

She scratched and clawed the door with all 
her might, but it was fast barred. Then she 
rose on her great hind feet and peered in at 
the window. There was the missing cub, 
who had climbed to the upper bunk to look 
out. 

“Mother! Mother!” he whined appeal- 
ingly. 

“There, there, now! — Shall I come in and 
get you, or can you climb out alone?” she 
asked in the soft little woof she kept for her 
cubs. 

“Huh! Guess I can climb out myself, if 
you’ll lift me down,” he sniffed, reassured. 

A moment more and the feat was accom- 
plished, and Mother Black Bear was leading 
her little family to a new den, where the man 
could not find them. 


A Good Resolution 


121 


‘‘Well, IVe trapped my last bear, so help 
me!” vowed Pierre the trapper, when his 
practised eye had read the story in their 
muddy footprints. 

In the next book, ‘‘Twinkly Eyes at Val- 
ley Faim,” we are going to find out what 
happened to the little black bear when he 
went back to visit the sugar camp again. 


THE END 
















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